A Day In The Life
by mmDerdekea
Summary: Enjoy a uniquely crazy 24 hours with Bill and Ralph as they strive to stop a group of arsonists. Slightly more Bill oriented, but with Ralph very present, and some Pam, this is a fun romp with action, comedy, green guys, bad guys, and an inkling of sex!
1. Chapter 1

A Day In The Life

By Mona Morstein

Chapter One

Bill Maxwell left the Wrightwood, California home of Harlan Blackford and Ira Hagert at 5:00 a.m. Monday morning. He had spent the weekend with them, as he generally did at least once a month, escaping the chaos of the city of Los Angeles to seek friendship and seclusion in nature, armed mainly with a fishing rod. He also enjoyed doing some handyman work on their home, bought after Pam Davidson won money for Ira from the City's eminent domain claim on his house, and which--combined with the sale of Ira's trailer--enabled them to buy a home in the woods north of the Los Angeles Forest. It was small but had three bedrooms. They hadn't openly stated the extra rood was for Bill, but it was kept ready for his use when he visited. Bill had some aptitude in various trades, and could in general fix a leaking pipe or chop firewood or change the oil in Ira's old sedan. He liked being helpful and was rewarded with Harlan's fine cooking, a surprising skill in a blind man.

Unfortunately, the working day called and Bill, dressed in a grey suit with his tie well loosened, and the top button of his shirt undone, drove the two hours back to town. He gave himself an extra hour in case of traffic, which usually occurred, beginning his week in a state of wistful annoyance. There was only one accident to set him back, so he got to work on time, in fact, forty-five minutes early, at 7:15 a.m. A couple of cups of coffee shook off the rest of his early morning fatigue and he was ready to go.

He casually said hello to the other Feds in the room they shared, their desks spread out throughout the large space. Bill's was over by the windows, regularly messy. Files and papers were strewn all over the surface, most of which Bill knew he had to quickly finish up and turn in for Carlisle's perusal. The fact that his boss seemed to enjoy grading his agents work as if they were in third grade English class was just one more reason Maxwell kept a roll of antacids in the top drawer of his desk. Maxwell always thought it was more important for him to nab criminals committing felonies than for him to know how to differentiate "who" vs. "whom", but Carlisle, who managed by criticism and suspicion, took such errors as seriously as investigating Russkies spying on military bases.

Maxwell hated paperwork, but had long ago gotten used to it. The problem wasn't really that he had to write up his cases, but that in the last two years he'd been working surreptitiously with Ralph and his magic jammies. Detailing the facts of the scenarios he pursued had to be delicately manipulated, so that all explanations of how Maxwell had found the creeps and arrested them were devoid of holographs, green guys, invisibility and super strength.

It was hard, sometimes, keeping it all a secret, but a big, silent secret it had to be. There was simply no way of telling anyone—anyone—about him and civilian Ralph Hinkley being chosen by advanced aliens, god knows why, to work together solving crimes and protecting the USofA and the world at large.

With a sigh, Maxwell hung his jacket on the back of his chair and sat down, his quick mind nimbly putting together the lies which would fudge the latest case particulars. Ralph's wife Pam had offered a suggestion would be beneficial to him in explaining on oddity of the case to Carlisle. She was useful that way as third string utility back-up. Sure, his boss would suspect something was fishy, but if Maxwell did the write-up well enough there would be nothing concrete for Carlisle to use against him.

A couple of hours passed until 9:15 Carlisle called all the agents for a meeting in their main conference room. Everyone strolled into the room and took their customary places, Bill in the center in the back. The Deputy Bureau Chief was with Carlisle, which was not common, and notched up the tension in the room just that little more beyond what Carlisle and his prissy, dictatorial manner already usually instituted.

"People, settle down," Carlisle began to a room that had been quietly respectful. Satisfied that his words were heeded, Carlisle motioned to the Chief. "You all know Deputy Bureau Chief Harlan Cain. He's going to be with us for a couple of days to see how our division works on a daily basis. We've been doing a good job and Chief Cain wants to see which aspects of our work he can use to guide the other departments under his control in California. Chief?"

Maxwell smiled, holding back a giggle. It would kill Carlisle to admit that Maxwell's kill rate was one of the leading reasons the L.A. office was flying high. And to prove it, Carlisle shot Bill a little scowl as he moved aside to let Cain speak.

"Good morning, Agents. I'm excited to be here watching your work. I'm proud to say that this section has received some notice from the FBI main office in Washington, DC. We've some tough new cases that need working on this week and I hope some real progress can occur."

Maxwell didn't budge for the first few. A hate crime case against a synagogue. Insurance Fraud. Mortgage Fraud. He had a well defined sense of urgency in his blood now, and was able to pick out cases that sat oddly in his system, and which usually elevated themselves to suit level scenarios. While hate crimes set poorly with him, he didn't feel it was suit class.

After a couple more boring cases the the next sent a surge of excitement through his body.

"There's an arsonist moving across the country, and that puts him in our jurisdiction," the Chief said. "We think the same person or group has set fires in Annandale, Virginia, Detroit, Michigan, Kansas City, Kansas and just last week in Bakersfield. All in warehouses and storage facilities. One homeless person was killed in the warehouse in Detroit, but no one else. Still, it feels like a larger crime is in the making, and I want it stopped beforehand."

Bill appreciated a guy who had an intuition of serious criminal activity, even when the evidence didn't quite stand out that way. Chief Cain was okay by him.

Bill had read of that fire in Bakersfield, and lodged it in his mind. Storage facility in Bakersfield, used by people to store random goods. Burst into flames in the middle of the night and before the firemen arrived, the facility had been engulfed in a metal melting fire. Nothing stolen, no reason for the crime discovered, but clearly arson, and high tech arson as well. There was something odd going on, something that sparked Bill's psychic sense of importance.

Bill raised his hand high. "I'll take that case, Chief Cain. I love tracking down firebugs. I got Torchy Tanner six months ago."

That was true. Ralph and Pam had, essentially, enabled Torchy to nearly burn down and steal from the Brother's Retreat in the Santa Barbara Mountains. After their embarrassment settled down, they'd been willing, eager even, to help Bill nab the guy and put him in jail again.

"I heard about that. Maxwell, isn't it? You've been doing some very good work lately. The Bureau is still grateful for you finding Sergei and Therea Valenkov.

"Thank you, Sir." Maxwell loved Carlisle rolling his eyes as he stood behind the podium. Bill couldn't pass up digging a couple of sarcastic claws into his boss's back; after all, Carlisle doled out compliments like some Scrooge with a bagful of charcoal. Maxwell added, "With such a boss as Les Carlisle we're all motivated to go the extra mile."

As death eyes shot from Carlisle to Maxwell, a few snickers escaped from various agents in the room. The Chief, however, missed the joke's derision and nodded in approval.

Carlisle interrupted, unable to keep silent. "Agent Maxwell is busy writing up some old cases this week, Chief Cain. I doubt he has the time to devote to a new case."

"Sure I do, boss," Maxwell quickly answered.

"I think we can let Agent Maxwell have another couple of days to write up cases, can't we, Les?"

"Thompson has worked on more arson cases than Maxwell," Carlisle said, pointing out another agent to Bill's side, much to Bill's annoyance.

"I'm busy with the sports bribery case, Mr. Carlisle," Thompson said, tossing a wink to Maxwell on the sly. Maxwell owed him a burger for that. "It's a pretty complicated scenario."

"Take the case," Cain said and handed Maxwell the file folder. He handed out another couple of investigations and then the Chief spoke to the agents as a group. "I'd like some follow-up by tomorrow morning. We'll have another meeting at 8:00 a.m. sharp."

As the meeting adjourned, Chief Cain got to Carlisle before Carlisle could get to Maxwell. "Solid agents, Les, solid. Maxwell in particular seems to be at the top of his game."

Carlisle knew that disagreeing with the Chief would seem petty. He bit down on his teeth to hold his tongue. Then he had a brilliant idea. As Maxwell giggled leaving the room he heard Carlisle call out his name and his giggle died a martyr's death.

"Maxwell, I'm sure you can progress deeply into the case by tomorrow, can't you…being as you are at the top of your game? Why don't we have you do a formal presentation to the rest of the Agents on your working methods?"

"Les, that's a great idea. Maxwell, 8 a.m. tomorrow, you'll speak to your fellow agents on your case. What do you say?"

Maxwell studied his two bosses waiting for them to burst into laughter and yell "Got ya!" But, they weren't jesting. Maxwell shriveled up inside. Public speaking was by no means his forte; in fact, he stank at it. When it related to solving cases that very likely involved magic jammies, Maxwell's heartburn leapt so high up his esophagus even his eyes seemed to be burning.

He stood there not speaking, in a kind of trance-like daze.

"Maxwell?" the Chief asked again.

Maxwell cleared his throat in a long and raspy roll. "Uh, yes, Sir. As you request. Tomorrow at 8 a.m."

"Don't be late, Maxwell. Chief Cain thrives on punctuality," Carlisle smirked.

Maxwell nodded half-heartedly and then turned stiffly and sped out of the meeting room. One day to progress on the case. Make a presentation to the other agents. Geez, how could this day get any worse?


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Forgetting about his timeline, Bill realized the case was intriguing. From arson to arson whoever was setting the fires was getting better and more skilled. Bill spent a couple of hours going over the file and calling the fire inspectors who had analyzed the arson sites. It came together pretty clearly in Maxwell's analytical mind. It seemed obvious that the warehouses and storage facilities were chosen not to rob, but because they most closely emulated the real target the arsonists were practicing their craft to burn; some sort of large, wide space in a generally not very flammable building. From the first arson report in Annandale to the one last week in Bakersfield, the materials used were perfected, the time from fire to meltdown of building was quicker, the heat was greater, the flames more impenetrable. Whatever the fire creeps really wished to destroy, by the time they had crossed the country, they had pretty much attained enough mastery to achieve it. But, what was their goal? What was to be burned down and why?

Maxwell dug around a little to find out what was happening in the Los Angeles/California area in the next month or so; what conventions or political groups were meeting in town. It quickly grew out of hand. The LA Convention Center was booked up until 1990, it seemed, with businesses and groups from all walks of life, a random spattering of hotels commonly used for conventions had similar long-term schedules. Politically, LA was a hotbed of activism and groups representing the main political parties and every group from alternative health to wacky religions to plumbers to accountants to brain surgeons were having seminars and conferences in the next year. It was impossible to wade through and discern which group was at the highest risk of being attacked and having a fire engulf their meeting.

Bill smiled that it was July. It was nice having a partner who had two and a half months off in the summer. Teaching was hard work, especially when one's class was filled with unmotivated juvenile delinquents, and the pay stank. Ralph earned about what Bill had made starting out as a Fed twenty-two years ago. But, that summer vacation made up for it, in Bill's mind. He wished he had that long a vacation to skip away to the MacKenzie river in Oregon and camp, fish and hike. Two measly weeks a year was the only vacation he got, hardly enough time to pack his luggage and rods.

Bill took the file, put his jacket back on and drove over to Ralph's home in Sherman Oaks. Barging in the continually open front door, he found Ralph eating a sandwich at the dining room table. Ralph was startled by Bill's sudden entry.

"Geez, Bill, I almost choked on my milk. You could at least knock before flying in."

"Is that turkey? Hold on, I'm starving." Bill tossed the file to the table and went into the kitchen, which he imagined to be a little free restaurant exclusively set up to feed him. Having skipped breakfast his stomach rumbled like boulders rolling down a mountain. The sandwich makings still littered the counter, so Bill hastily put together a thick turkey sandwich, studiously avoiding the tomato slices, and generously lathering on the mayo. He found some diet pop in the fridge and poured out a glass. Carrying his plate and beverage, Bill came back to the dining room and sat down beside Ralph who was chewing away as he perused the file.

"Arson, huh?" Ralph asked. "Another Torchy Tanner?"

Bill took a huge bite himself. "Bigger. This guy, or probably guys, are planning some spectacular fire somewhere, and have been ironing out their flammable rough spots in a cross country bonfire spree."

"Oh, last week in Bakersfield. That's why you're involved. They've come to California."

"Something suit level is being planned, Ralph. I can feel it. We've gotta find these guys and nab 'em."

Ralph cast a glance at his partner as he wolfed down another large bite. It had taken a little time for Ralph to get used to Bill Maxwell. Fed, Republican, Right-wing, Abrasive, Demanding, Eccentric—these negative qualities had been very outstanding for their first cases and had set Ralph on edge. But, the green guys had paired them up and Ralph had no recourse but to deal exclusively with Bill. In that time, and as a few more cases occurred, he had been able to notice and appreciate the equally positive aspects of his partner: humor, tolerance, loyalty, the commitment to friendship, his bravery, courage and willingness to do anything to protect his friends and country. The green guys had done their job well in choosing two incredibly disparate people to be joined as partners—Ralph and Bill had merged into best friends, which for them meant continuing to annoy each other while enjoying each other's company.

One thing Ralph had definitely learned was to trust and respect was Bill's intuition and feelings. Not his emotions; god knows they were hopelessly ensconced in the machoism of his job and generation. If he believed this problem was "suit worthy," Ralph had no response but to go along.

Bill continued, "The L.A. Deputy Bureau Chief himself gave me the case."

Ralph asked, "Isn't he the one who got you off taking lie detector tests?"

Bill nodded, "Yeah, after your delinquents helped me find the Valenkovs. He's a good guy and jumped right in when Carlisle wanted his best agent, me, stuck writing up reports instead of taking this on. That not only got Carlisle's goat, it got his whole farm."

Ralph nodded sympathetically. There was little to recommend Les Carlisle. Ralph didn't like him, plain and simple.

"I've got to make real progress on it and then present it tomorrow, present it!, to the other agents."

"Present it? But, you hate speaking publicly. And you do an awful job of it."

"Yeah…I guess…"

"I mean, terrible. Pathetic."

Maxwell stared at him. "I get your point."

Ralph smiled.

Maxwell tapped the folder. "Why don't you get your jammies on and see if you can holograph off the file? That almost never works, and if it doesn't, we've got a fast drive to Bakersfield this afternoon. "

They put the unwashed dishes in the sink and the food in the fridge and then Ralph donned his suit and sat with the folder opened up and wrapped around his curly blond hair. He focused on some blank space on the wall of his dining room for a couple of minutes. Bill took a deep breath and dared to put his hand on Ralph's shoulder, to allow himself to see any holograph Ralph visualized, even though his hair stood on end when he did. Nothing happened.

"Nope, Bill, not a thing."

"Alright, let's head up to Bakersfield. Go get some clothes on."

"You know, I might have had some plans already set up for today."

"Ralph, buying a new dishwasher should take second place to preventing a roomful of people winding up s'more's over a campfire."

"How'd you know I was going to do that?"

Bill pointed to the Sears catalog on the dining room table open to dishwashers. "Plus, the plate I used still had some dried on food on it from a previous meal."

"Sorry."

"I don't care, Ralph. Catching sparkplugs I care about. Go on, get dressed. I'll be out in the car."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

David Hartman finished up his lunch of lentils, greens and brown rice. There was only one vegetarian restaurant in Bakersfield that he had been able to track down via the phone book, and it wasn't that bad. He wished that the lentils had been curried, as David simply loved the heat. He wondered if that was what had drawn him to fire as revenge.

"Man, Bakersfield is ugly," he said to his lunch companion, as they saw the row of grey buildings across the street. "Hardly a tree in sight, and surrounded by desert. This is the flaw of technology; it lures mankind to hideous cities and pulls them from their natural roots."

Phillip Lehrer, short and stocky, nodded, gulping down the last of his soy milk. "There's an animal research company here in Bakersfield. We should practice once more on them."

"Don't be an idiot," David answered, lowering his voice to a whisper as he leaned over to consolidate the conversation solely to the two of them. "We've got our target; we've perfected our technique. The Symposium of Research Scientists is our goal. It's the largest convention of animal torturers in the country. If we can nail three hundred of them, maybe we can wind up saving thousands of lab animals."

"Are you concerned that public opinion might be raised against us, for killing so many people?"

"Public opinion! The same public that eats at McDonald's and grills chicken two nights a week? The same public that watches rodeo and bull-fighting? We need to make a huge presence in society. We need to alert people that there are folks who realize animals must be protected and nurtured, not tortured and eaten."

"We're gonna make the news, that's for sure. How's your finger?"

Hartman looked at his forefinger, wrapped in a couple of bandaids. Both Karen and him had accidentally broken a window while examining the Bakersfield site, like some Vaudeville comedy team they had both suffered superficial cuts as a result. That had been careless, but he felt assured that the heat of the fire had baked away any evidence of their touch.

"It's fine. Nothing."

Hartman, tall and lean due to his strict veganish, with a hawk nose and thick brown eyebrows, thumbed through a notepad. "We've got the house in Studio City with the garage out back; Terry, Eddie and Julio are already there. We've got the registration materials for Terry and Julio to attend the conference. Our Bakerfield connection came through for us with supplies. We've got enough chemical incendiary to have the electrical fire ignite the room in seconds. We've got the electrician tools, the little CD4 to start the electrical fire, the timing mechanisms. We've got the back-up radio signalers in case the timers fail. We've got the chains to lock the doors closed, which Terry and Tom will do right before they send the radio signal." He closed the notepad. "We've got everything compartmentalized, so that if any one of us are caught the rest can continue on. Remember, if caught, you don't say one word about anything. No matter what.

"No matter what!"

"Right we're all set to go."

"Sounds so simple. Start electrical outlet fires, which will spread throughout the banqueting room; with the doors locked no one will be able to escape. It's brilliant. Wiping out a huge selection of the worst of humanity."

"Brilliant, but necessary." Hartman laughed. "Can you imagine these intelligent brainiacs allowing two members of the Animal Rights Action League to join their conference? It's like they're asking to be punished!"

"Yeah, true. And, animals all over the world will thank you."

"Long live the chimpanzees free from their cages! Alright, it's a little after noon. We'll jump the 3:21 freight train to Los Angeles."

"You sure it's the way to go? Not by Amtrak?"

"Amtrak is for societal minions who cour to authority. I've been riding trains since I was eleven. You'll see. It brings out the rebel yell in your system. I'll meet you at the train. I just want to check with Karen to make sure she's got everything down. I've told you how to slink through the train yard and which train and car we'll be in. You'll do fine. I'll have all the timing mechanisms for the CD4 in the briefcase. Karen is driving the truck down with the supplies. We'll organize it in the garage in Anaheim Tuesday evening you'll be able to see our fire burning from the moon."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

The two hour drive up to Bakersfield was uneventful, with light conversation filling up the time. Ralph was pleased to hear how well it was going with Harlan and Ira, proving that his experiment of doing good with the suit had not been a complete disaster half a year ago, Tanner aside. He wrangled Bill into following up on those sorts of do-gooder actions now and then, if only to aggravate his partner, whom he knew overall enjoyed the work if it was kept to a bare minimum, though he usually refused to admit it.

Bill drove directly to the burnt down warehouse with the idea that if Ralph could holograph anything it would be from the most recent arson. They arrived at the crime scene, a shell of a metal skeleton left standing, black with soot and smoke, windows only with points of glass remaining around the edges.

"Geez, something out of Dresden," Ralph said.

Bill nodded in disapproval.

Seeing no one around, Ralph got out of the car and took off his outer clothing and shoes, dumping it all on the car seat.

"Let's go inside and see what we find," Bill directed. "Be careful. It's pretty windy today. The structure may not be that stable."

"You be careful. I've got the suit on."

"Well, watch out for me, kid. You don't need a partner with a metal rod protruding from his head."

They slipped in through a door space where the metal door was lying awkwardly on the floor, held in place only by the lower hinge. Stepping over it they entered the warehouse giving it a quick look around, left and right, up and down; it seemed at the moment to be safe.

Maxwell bent over and picked up a piece of burnt metal and handed it to Ralph. "See if you can get anything."

Ralph held the metal object but didn't get that tingly feeling that meant he was picking up on holograph energy. He walked around the open area, treading lightly over the detriment of the fire. "I don't know, Bill, nothing is really---wait a second—". Ralph felt drawn to something by a wall, behind a heavy piece of scuffed and charred metal. Using his super strength, Ralph pushed the metal object aside and bent over to pick up a piece of glass on the floor, studying it.

"Bill, I think there's a fingerprint on this glass. And, I'm getting something from it…."

Bill raced over to his partner, watching him studiously as Ralph's eyes focused on nothing, seeing everything.

With a grimace of anticipation Bill gingerly put his arm on Ralph's shoulder and saw what his partner was holographing: a man sneaking around the Bakersfield freight train depot with a metal briefcase in hand. He came to a specific train and dodged inside an open car, scurrying around the opening to hide. The holograph took them inside the train control room to see that train was leaving at 3:21 p.m. Suddenly the holograph switched to a woman closing up the back door of a smallish delivery vehicle. Climbing into the driver's seat she drove out a hotel parking lot: the Vagabond Inn, 6100 Knudsen Drive, by Highway 99.

The vision faded away.

"Alright, we've got two creeps out there associated with the fires but we don't know why. I suppose we have probable cause to go after them…" Bill hesitated, a bit unsure of the legality of his pulling them in. It wasn't proper to yank citizens off the street for interrogation based on an alien holograph and no other real proof.

"There're involved, Bill. Deeply. Seriously. They've got some big fire planned. I can feel it."

Bill looked at the glass, and then took out his handkerchief to grab hold of it. "I wonder if those fingerprints might be a valid clue." He grew excited. "Ralph, you go after the gal driving the truck and catch her." He tightly flexed his left wrist as he always did when checking his watch. "I'll drop this glass off at the Bakersfield police and request a STAT fingerprint search through the computers, then head out to the freight yards. I'll meet up with you on the train, after you've tied up the driver and stuffed her on hold in the truck."

Ralph nodded.

They left the building and Ralph glanced around for his bearings.

"Highway 99 and Knudsen Drive is that way," Bill pointed to the left.

It was uncanny how much of California Bill Maxwell seemed to have memorized. Ralph realized that the maps all over his studio apartment actually served a good purpose and weren't simply a representation of his awful sense of home decor.

Ralph took a deep breath and then took three short steps and leapt upwards, the suit's power elevating him quickly above any building in Bakersfield.

Bill watched his partner soar off. On a whim, he went back into the building to check for any more glass the criminals might have touched. In the area by where the first one had been found, Bill squeezed behind the heavy object, pushed aside more debris and uncovered a second piece of sharp, fractured glass, which had a little dried blood smeared across it. Holding it next to the first piece, Bill saw they matched; they had come from the same window. Bill smiled. Bad guy body fluid. That might produce extra vibes if needed. Satisfied, Bill dove into his car and stored the second piece of glass in the glove box,. He drove to the nearest police station, his excitement nearly as palpable as the gun resting solidly against the side of his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Bill Maxwell wasn't exactly welcomed by the local blue, being a Fed from LA, but they respected his rank and were certainly willing to help bag the creeps who had burned down a building in their town. It didn't take long to make a copy of the fingerprints, scan it into the computer and find a match. Two matches, actually.

David Hartman, 34, Animal Activist, Community College Professor, arrested three times before for protesting research at Rutgers University. No jail time.

Karen Englewood, 35, Animal Activist, Aerobics Instructor, also arrested for protesting, for vandalism against animal labs and once for breaking into one in Pennsylvania and releasing all the animals. Served 90 days in jail for that.

The photos matched the two he and Ralph had seen in the holograph.

Bill smiled. "Gotcha," he said.

"You know where they are?" the police sergeant asked.

"Looking into it."

"Don't hog the glory like you Feds always do. This fire was in my town. I want to nab them."

"Do your own investigation," Maxwell said, grabbing the glass and the criminal sheets. "I found this in the warehouse. Just lying on the floor. I can't help it if you and your fire inspectors need glasses."

Maxwell had no time to answer the vitriol that followed. He had to get to the train.

It was a very windy day. Windier than Ralph had ever flown in. He had heard the weather that morning warning that a thunderstorm might move in during the afternoon and it seemed likely by the wind and the clouds slowly moving east.

A sudden downdraft sent Ralph crashing down into a large oak in a public park. He flopped down onto the ground and before the woman pushing her baby stroller could even begin to comprehend what she had seen, he was skipping three steps and taking off again.

He didn't get very far. His cape kept bouncing all around behind him, fluttering and at times snapping sharply. It pulled Ralph off balance even more. He found himself nose-diving again into an office building, hitting the red brick wall with his arms covering his head, only to drop fifteen feet further to the paved ground of an alleyway.

Minutes later, he crashed again into a parked semi trailer at a truck rest stop. He turned invisible while the large trucker came out of his cab to investigate the noticeable "thud!" and took off again, but his concentration on keeping aloft turned him back visible within seconds. He kept his arms straight out in front, and ignored the buffering of his body left and right and up and down. He could fly. He had been doing so for nearly two years. He could do this…then the wind did a wicked move and his cape flashed around the front of his head, covering his face and obscuring his vision when he believed he heard helicopter rotors coming up on his right…? Struggling to remove the cape and send it to his back again, Ralph then clipped the landing pod of a helicopter, not harming it but once more he did a long fall to earth, landing on his stomach in the middle of someone's backyard. He sat up, feeling incompetent and frustrated and let a harsh "Damn!" erupt out of his mouth.

This was going to take much longer than he had anticipated.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

The Bakersfield freight sorting yard was adjacent to the Amtrak station on Truxtun Ave. Bill found the station at 3:00 p.m. He pulled his Dodge Diplomat into a parking space and dashed off onto the freight yard tracks, once or twice his badge and authoritative demeanor brushing aside a trainman's questions and getting directions to the train he was looking for. He found it just as it was beginning to move out of the yard and in a reflex action he grabbed hold of a ladder leading up the side of a car and jumped on just as the train's speed accelerated to a dangerous rate. It was only by luck that he saw another man leap into an open box car fourteen cars away.

That had to be his man. Bill looked up to the top of the train car. He had seen enough movies where a man leapt over the top of moving train cars to realize it was possible; at least, for stunt men. Ralph wasn't to be seen and besides, it hurt Bill's pride a little to think he needed Ralph to do everything. He was an able Fed. He could handle some geek animal wacko. Timidly Bill began climbing the ladder to the roof of the car, a healthy dose of fear pervading his body and keeping his actions slow and deliberate. With a relatively quick move he dove onto the top and lay flat, the wind skimming his hair off his head. Cautiously he stood up, his legs wide apart. This wasn't so bad. The train was only going twenty miles an hour. He took a little step and kept his balance, the side to side motion of the train not that terribly precarious.

Bill got to the edge of the roof and looked down to see the tracks passing by quickly under the train. Logically, Bill's analytical eye saw it was only a leap of four or five feet to the next car, an easy distance for a man of 6'2". Emotionally, it seemed like he would be leaping across the Grand Canyon. Impossible.

But, then he realized people were going to be burned up. He was sure of it. And Maxwell might be the only person who could stop it. He glanced ahead and saw the track was straight for a solid mile. It made sense to jump now, without a turn to increase the danger.

Bill backed up a few feet to get a running start. He had always had an athletic frame and was still lean and in pretty good shape. Without allowing any more thought, Bill lurched forward and flung his body over the open space, landing on both feet and falling to his hands and knees, a little skin scraped off his kneecaps. Some sweat fell onto the roof.

No problem.

He stood up feeling rather proud; not bad for a fifty-two year old geezer. Too bad Ralph wasn't around to see him.

Only thirteen more cars to go.

The train seemed to be picking up speed.

Fifty-two was suddenly a fairly daunting age.

Ralph arrived at the Vagabond Inn nearly forty minutes after leaving Bill, a full thirty minutes later than he had anticipated given the brief distance to the Inn from the warehouse. He splatted onto the roof of the Inn. When he stood back up and looked around the circular parking lot, he was not surprised to find the truck was long gone.

He sighed. There was nothing to do but humiliate himself as the long arm of the law.

Ralph jumped down the thirty feet to land lightly on the ground and strode to the small lobby of the Inn, opening the door as if it was completely natural that a man dressed in a red superhero costume entered the room. The bored Inn worker, reading an entertainment magazine, didn't even glance up as he approached the counter.

"Excuse me," Ralph said, "but can you tell me which room Karen Englewood was registered in?"

The clerk looked up and snorted in derision at Ralph's attire. She pointed at him and said, "You some Superman wannabee?"

"Actually, in a way, yes. Now, which room was Miss Englewood in?"

"Can't tell you that," she said. "It's against the law." Her eyes narrowed cunningly and Ralph discerned she would tell him anything about any of their guests, no matter the law, for some money. Unfortunately, Ralph had none. Did any superhero outfit have pockets? His didn't. A fresh thought arose in Ralph's head. He held up a finger and said, "Be right back."

Dashing outside, he bunched his hands into fists and concentrated on turning invisible, and viola, he was. Opening up the lobby door, he meandered inside, the clerk once again reading about some celebrity's divorce. He shimmied over the counter and found the guest register and quietly turning a page he found that there was only one entry in the last week for a single woman, a Patricia Rodgers. She had been in Room 127. He closed the register and left the lobby, walking to Room 127. He passed a pop machine and wondered about keeping at least some change in his suit boots.

Ralph didn't even have to go into Room 127. Standing at the entrance of it another holograph occurred showing him that Patricia had indeed been Karen Englewood. The circular vision then showed Ralph she was driving down Highway 99, about twenty miles away.

One, two, three and he was flying again, the wind once again causing his attention to flee from his invisibility and he lost his transparency. A couple of windblown crashes and he was soon on the tail of the truck, gaining slowly on it. He landed just behind the truck and reaching out with his hands did not allow him to grab hold of it. He skid to a halt and saw it retreating. He launched himself running at the truck and got up to a higher speed than the truck, blowing the back left tire out with a solid suit kick. Unfortunately, that sidewise swipe at a large, moving tire threw Ralph off balance and he stumbled forward, landing on the ground directly beneath the truck's undercarriage. As he rolled a few times the flattened truck tire ran over the back of him, the weight of the vehicle thrusting his breath from his lungs as his face was squashed into the street. The truck swerved to the right, then the left, then the right again before Karen's heavy use of the brake brought it under control and to a zigzagged stop by the side of the road, the front end on up on the curb, the read end angled out a little into the street.

Ralph got up, brushing off his hands and shaking his hair of bits of pavement gravel. Not the smoothest corralling of a criminal, but effective nonetheless. He jogged over to the driver's door and pulling on it heartily ripped it out. Karen, already shaken by the tire popping suddenly, upon seeing Ralph holding the heavy truck door in one hand, let out a scream of fear and nicely fainted.

That was convenient. Ralph gathered her up, carried her to the back of the truck and using his telekinesis, unlocked the door and had it lift up on its own accord. He placed Karen in the truck, tied her up with some spare rope and covered her mouth with the bandana in her hair. He then closed up the door and relocked it with his mind. It was shut tight.

Things had gone well even with the wind. He took three steps and lifted off to go help Bill. If he could find where the freight yards were.

Bill continued leaping over the train cars in a ceaseless continual pattern. He moved slowly across the top of the train car, hunched over and staying in the direct center. He sped up nearing the break between cars and caught himself after he landed, giving himself a moment of rest before beginning again.

He got to the fourteenth car and now had to inch forward to the side of the car where the ladder was leading down next to the opening of the box car. He stopped a few feet from the edge. Looking up into the sky, he was disappointed not to see Ralph yet. He should have been here by now. What was taking so long?

Bill was a brave man, but he was by no means fearless. That was one distinction that had helped keep him alive all the years of his active service. Still, the fact was there was just one man down in the car, and it was probably safer for Bill to be there, then to continue to tempt fate by standing on the top of the train. There were, after all, Bill knew, tunnels ahead on the tracks.

Compressing his lips into a tight line, Bill lowered himself down to the roof and scooted on hands and knees to where the ladder was welded to the top of the train. Grabbing both sides of the ladder Bill swung his long legs down onto a rung, gripping tightly for life, his heart pounding in his chest. There was nothing in the near distance to rub against the side of the train and brush him off like a fly on an arm, so he began his descent, avoiding any glimpse down to the ground rushing by underneath him. When he was at the level of the box car floor he paused a moment and then launched himself sideways landing on the dirty, wooden floor, strewn with some hay and miscellaneous papers. He saw David Hartman, eyes wide open, against the wall, a couple of ragged, unshaven hobos, drinking booze further in the corner. Now, in his area of expertise, Bill Maxwell stood up in full possession of his body, as if he had just finished walking down an office corridor, not scurrying over half a freight train. In a smooth and quick double movement, Maxwell took his gun out of his holster with his right hand, and his badge out of his right inside jacket pocket with his left.

"Maxwell, FBI. You're busted, Hartman. Drop the briefcase and turn around, leaning against the wall."

Hartman's face displayed the shock of the totally unprepared. "How did you find me?"

"Through your fairy godmother. Turn around." Hartman did as directed, resting his hands on the wall of the train as his head was turned as far as possible to see Maxwell. Bill put his badge away and pulled a set of handcuffs out of his pocket. "Now, just who are you going to toast crispy black? What does an animal activist barbecue, since it ain't a sirloin steak."

Maxwell saw anxiety on Hartman's face as he approached, which he expected, but it only lasted for a second and then it transformed into a more confident expression as his eyes flicked behind Maxwell's back.

Maxwell's mind raced rationally piecing together Hartman's reaction, defining the disaster a moment before it unfolded. There was someone else in the car, an ally of Hartman's, whom Ralph hadn't picked up on, perhaps because his fingerprints hadn't been on the glass—

Maxwell's turn to confront the second activist probably saved his life. The blow directed at the back of his head lost its full power, glancing off its side. Still, it was stunning. As he staggered, a second smack landed on his right forearm, shocking the nerves of his arm into submission and causing the gun to drop out of his hand. The pain was terrible and Bill reflexively grabbed his wrist. Hartman took immediate advantage of Maxwell's incapacitation and stuck him a solid blow in the forehead with the corner of his briefcase. Bill collapsed to the floor, blood flowing freely down his face. A kick to his chest curled him up, and things got worse after that. The two didn't relent and feet kept smashing into his body as Bill struggled to reach his second holster with his right arm incapacitated and his left protecting his head from errant wallops. Through the chaos he saw Hartman reaching down for his gun and Maxwell sent it skimming over the wood floor with his heel. It tumbled out of the box car. As a kick hit a kidney, and agony exploded inside Maxwell he saw the air turn red. He finally yanked out his other gun and wildly fired a shot, then another, in desperate fear for his life. The box car ear-splittingly echoed with the booms.

The blows ceased and he heard scampering sounds followed by silence.

Bill lay on his side awhile cursing himself for his stupidity. When the pains settled into dull aches, he rolled to his back, and then with a grunt sat up, noticed the criminals were gone, and stiffly reholstered his gun. He wiped blood out of his eye with his left hand, his right forearm still tingly. More blood instantly fell down his face. He felt a noticeable inch and a half long cavity in the skin on the left side of his forehead, deep enough to leave a scar. He then palpated a decided bump on the back of his head.

"Ow," Maxwell whined.

"You lost that one, Fed," one of the drunks said. "Hit ya with a crowbar, the one behind you."

"Ya shoulda looked around when you came in. Sloppy work. Wouldn't you say, Crawford?" the second asked the first.

"Sloppy indeed."

Sloppy indeed. Almost fatally so. He should have looked around. Too much relying on Ralph and the holographs.

"Still, gotta say you can take a hit or two, and keep on ticking. Can't he, Winston?"

"Yup, can take a beating with the best of 'em."

"Would you two shut up and drink your hooch? I don't need a drunken recap," Bill growled in a foul mood, their inane dialogue worsening the ghastly pain he still felt in his lower back. Kidney strikes were devastating. He hoped he wouldn't be urinating blood. When he was sure he wasn't going to upchuck, he stood up, warily, rubbing his right arm and opening and closing his fist; the functioning was returning pretty well. He wiped blood out of his left eye again, and more still flowed instantly downward. That was a losing battle. He'd need some stitches.

Bill limped to the edge of the box car, the muscles over his kidney spasming a little. He looked at the ground passing by quickly and realized his gun was long gone by now. He'd have to buy a new one. Quality automatics were expensive, but at least he could deduct the expense from his taxes. Thank God he had taken to wearing a double holster, no matter how "Wild Bill" Ralph thought it was. It had probably saved his life. Bill stared up the ladder, where Hartman and his crony had no doubt fled. He took his communicator out of his pocket. "Ralph, Ralph, come in. Can you hear me? Come in."

There was a crackling and then a long scream ending in a befuddled mess of sounds. Bill was able to interpret this occasional response by now; Ralph had crashed.

The hoboes kept yammering. "They're getting away. They may have leapt off the train already, don't you think, Crawford?"

"No wonder criminals abound in society, Winston. Law officers simply let them escape."

"Ralph, can you hear me?" Bill asked again, ignoring the ragamuffin choir in the background.

"Bill, sorry, the wind is giving me grief," Ralph voice finally answered.

"Did you get the female in the truck?"

"Yup. All tied up in the back."

"How far are you from the train?"

"Without wind, five minutes. With wind, I don't know. Did you get Hartman?"

"No. There was another fellow with him, which your holograph didn't detect. They got away and I'm going to look like a black and blue spackled Frankenstein." He lightly probed his forehead wound again.

"You're hurt?"

"Nothing a bottle of aspirin and a colon of catgut can't fix."

"Don't move. I'll be right there. It's the damn wind. I can't fly in it."

Bill put the communicator back in his pocket, as blood dripped off his chin onto his shoe. Hopefully that would wash out. He liked these shoes. He wiped his face again, only to feel the blood still oozing out.

"They're getting away, Officer."

"It's 'Agent', and I know they are! Can't you fall into an alcoholic stupor?"

"After only a bottle of rye? Only amateurs can't handle a bottle of rye, isn't that right, Winston?"

"Oh, yes. I've been able to handle rye since I was eight."

Rubbing his sore chest, Maxwell was irked. His failing to discern Hartman's ally, hiding across the freight car irked him. His tender crowbar bump irked him. The blood running down his face and the inevitable facial scar irked him. The other three thousand aches pulsating throughout his body irked him. Ralph's incompetence in flying irked him. But standing uselessly in the freight car while murderous criminals possibly escaped irked him the most.

The hell with waiting. Maxwell went back to the opening of the freight car and looked down the way they were traveling. Nothing that could scrape against the train's side, dislodging him, was coming as far as he could see. He reached out with his long arms and grabbed hold of a rung of the ladder and swung his feet onto it. Gathering his courage, Bill began climbing upwards, having to pause every now and then to clear his left eye of blood. They were only armed with a crowbar and a metal suitcase; he had a gun containing seven bullets and a spare cartridge in his pocket. They couldn't surprise him again; he knew there were two of them. Ralph should be arriving soon. The odds were on his side.

Bill climbed slowly. He wasn't quite as energetic as earlier. But, he felt his adrenaline releasing the higher he climbed. It was nerve-wracking getting near the roof, worrying if they were right there, waiting for him, to smash down on his head a more solid hit than the glancing head strike in the car. Holding onto a rung with his left hand, he pulled his gun from its holster again. Crouching down he got his body high enough on the ladder that with a sudden spring his torso cleared the roof, his gun ready to fire.

Hartman and his partner were only four cars down to the left; apparently they had their own misgivings about leaping from box car to box car and were none too happy to keep doing so. Jumping off the train to escape seemed pretty far from their minds. Bill grinned. He climbed onto the roof, having to kneel down as the tracks made a pretty tight curve. As the train straightened out, he partly rose and progressed down the middle of the roof, leaping over the open space and gaining on his alleged felons. The shock of landing sent all his bruises into protest and he stumbled forward onto his hands and knees, but too unsteady to catch himself and he landed flat on his stomach. Oh, boy, he thought, lifting his head off the dirt of the roof, this was much more difficult than before. But, he wanted these guys. He disdained those willing to kill people to protest the death of animals. Bill was an animal lover of dogs and horses—which he'd rarely admit--and it angered him when people abused them, but nothing was worth killing people at a convention. There were legal ways to protect animals. Murder wasn't legal.

He got back up to his feet. Preparing himself for each coming jolt, Bill leapt the other cars.

The creeps saw him nearing and after clearing the final hurdle he was on the same boxcar as them. Hartman was ten feet away, the other guy, wielding the crowbar, only eight feet and a little to his left. Maxwell had the advantage, facing the way the train was going. He aimed his gun directly at Hartman, his eyes going back and forth between the two men.

"Hold it, Hartman. And you, put the crowbar down," he ordered the unknown man, who had taken a step or two closer. Maxwell turned the gun on him. "Freeze, creep!"

There was a piercing "Bill!" yell as Ralph was delivered from the heavens, skimming over Bill and the two men, landing on the next roof over on his stomach, sliding fast at an angle over the top side of the car. Bill naturally watched his partner trying to ensure he was alright; even given the protection of the suit, Ralph could hit his head or somehow possibly otherwise injure himself. He saw Ralph standing up on the ground as the train passed along and a relieved Bill, in his anxiety over his friend's safety, realized he had unintentionally committed a grave error. Flashing back around to face his adversaries his head burst into atoms, vaporizing almost entirely into pure white light. He lost everything—awareness, control of his body, a comprehension of time and reality. Bill experienced a sensation of lopsided movement, followed by a few seconds of flying, like Ralph, freely, through the air.

There was a sudden breath-taking stoppage of forward motion, a vicious slam into something that did not budge at all, and from far away he perceived nauseating cracks and snaps as the world turned over and over and over so quickly he felt like a tornado spinning at an F5 velocity. It seemed to go on forever, for a millennium, and there was nothing he could do but continually twirl about until it finally ended and he lay still, faintly registering he was now nothing more than a battered clump of damaged humanity.

Bill felt a thick layer of brutal pain cover him like a second skin, tight and constricting. Otherwise, the world was a fading proposition. All Bill knew was that it was quiet except for the clacking of a train heading off into the distance and the sound of a high-pitched voice singing out the word "Bill! Bill! Bill!" like a bird chirping gaily in a tree.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Ralph's dive off the train hadn't hurt anything but his pride. Standing up after hitting the ground at forty miles an hour he had seen Bill's wide-eyed, concerned gaping at him. He had also seen Bill turn around and get clobbered in the side of the head with a crowbar by a man who had swung his whole body into the strike. Before Ralph could do anything, to his horror Bill had simply lurched off the top of the box car, landing on the rocky hillside on the other side of the train, out of Ralph's sight and thus out of his capacity to use any of his powers to curtail Bill's landing.

Ralph leapt over the locomotive, forgetting the criminals, their upcoming crime, the fires, forgetting it all as he landed sprightly on the ground by the tracks just as Bill was coming to the end of his rapid descent down the jagged, boulder strewn landscape, his limbs flailing out to the sides like a puppet dancing in a street show. Finally, at the bottom of the slope, Bill was lying on his side on the flat ground, unmoving, his suit torn in numerous places.

Ralph raced down the hill to reach his best friend.

"Bill! Bill! Bill!" he cried, terror stricken.

There was no response. Ralph sank down beside his partner, his dismay preventing him from acting for a second or two as his eyes traveled all over Bill's body. Gathering his courage, he pushed Bill lightly and Bill flopped ungainly onto his back. Ralph grew light-headed and fought back vomiting, swallowing hard. "Oh, my god," he whispered.

A thick sliver of thigh bone was visible through a rent in Bill's trousers, jutting up like a newly formed prehistoric mountain thrust out of a roiling Earth. His right forearm was bent in an unnatural way and his left elbow seemed out of alignment, too. His face was drenched with blood, as if a faucet had been turned on over his forehead to pour out his vital fluid in a sickeningly sticky stream. Ralph had no idea if Bill had any internal injuries but he feared he had to. It was a miracle he was still even alive. No one should survive a fall from the roof of a box car going forty miles an hour after being struck in the head by a crowbar. Ralph said a prayer of thanks for Maxwell's toughness, but they were in the middle of nowhere outside Bakersfield. How long would his friend hold on? Where was the nearest hospital and anyway, would Bill ever recover from these types of fractures? Would he be a cripple because Ralph couldn't fly in windy weather? Because Bill had cared more for Ralph's well-being than for his own?

No, dammit. Ralph wouldn't let it happen. The green guys had given him and Bill the suit and in some way they were therefore responsible for what happened to them as a result of their using it. Especially since Ralph had lost the instruction book twice, and they hadn't given him and Bill another.

Damn the holographs. Damn the wind.

Ralph wouldn't let the suit beat him again.

Ralph dragged his cape around to the front and then slid his arms under Bill's knees and shoulders, the movement causing mumbled moans to usher out of Bill's mouth. Although Bill was too long to be fully covered, he draped the cape over Bill, at least covering his face and his torso. He nestled Bill's limp head against his shoulder, and closing his eyes gathered up his determination. He stood, took three solid steps and jumped upwards, shooting like an arrow high into the sky. From Bakersfield it was one hundred miles to Palmdale by car over the Tehachapi Highway; a one and a half to two hour ride. Ralph had every intention of getting there in no more than half an hour, or even less. Unwilling to allow the wind to affect him, his mind wholly on his goal, Ralph accelerated until he was a red bullet streaking straight and unswerving through the gathering clouds, gaining on 200 mph then surpassing that, his cape protecting Bill from the force of the air against his broken body.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Ralph landed in the middle of the desert outside Palmdale, sand, cactus and low, spindly plants the only witnesses to his touchdown. Leaning back a little Ralph came down on his feet, slowing himself in a dwindling run. A trip over an errant root sent him to his knees, leaving twin parallel divots imbedded in the wet dirt as his progress diminished to a stop, his tight grip of Bill against his chest never wavering.

He lowered the fully unconscious Bill to the ground, arranging his fractured body in what he hoped was the best position on his back. He stood up looking up into a gloomy grey sky, cumulonimbus clouds covering up all the blue and the sun, turning the world darker than it naturally was at 5 p.m. in August. As tiny dots of rain fell onto Ralph he knew the storm was quickly approaching.

The four times he and Bill had seen the space ship it had always been late at night, under the cover of dark, keeping the secret hidden from prying eyes. Ralph looked down at his partner. His skin had assumed a pale and dusky pallor, his breaths increasing. Bill didn't have four more hours to wait until the blackness of night asserted itself. The green guys would have to come down now, and allow the murkiness of the thunderstorm to protect their clandestine existence.

"Come down!" Ralph bellowed, loudly aiming his voice up to the clouds "We need you! Come down!"

Nothing happened. No ship appeared. He called out again, his cry hopelessly dissipated into the beginning of an intense downpour, lost to peels of devastatingly loud thunder. Ralph felt such intense despair he almost burst into tears. But Bill had taught him to act, that pressure makes diamonds. Ignoring his partner being soaked to the skin, the rain washing dried blood off his cheeks, Ralph leapt into the air circling ever higher, his demands the ship appear becoming more and more frantic.

The lowering circle of lights made him shout with joy, and he descended back to Bill, his landing this time an awkward crash. He ran to his friend and scooped him up, again covering him with his cape. Bill seemed even more flaccid and lifeless than before.

The super brilliant lights on the bottom of the ship illuminated a blinding ten foot diameter around the two of them. "Hurry up!" Ralph urged. "Hurry up!"

The transporting beam was odd. There was no sensation of anything—one moment he was on the ground holding Bill, the next, a blink of an eye later, he was in the bare and sterile recovery room, the large metal table in it taking up most of the space. Bill was gone. His arms were empty.

Ralph dashed to the doors of the room and they slid open with a smooth "whoosh" as he approached. Not even stopping to say hello to the levitating robot or the head Green Guy, he ran to the little window of the healing chamber. Bill was in there, clothed, surrounded by various colored lights, bobbing gently above the thin table underneath his body. Ralph touched the window separating them, resting his head against the wall, his eyes closed.

The floating robot came by and nudging Ralph gently handed him the ear translator. Ralph put it in his right ear. The green alien approached him.

"He has numerous broken bones, a serious concussion, and his spleen and liver are bleeding," the green guy said.

Ralph turned to look at the alien. "He fell off a moving train."

"Yes, we know."

Instead of being comforted, there was something eerily spooky about the aliens so closely following the lives of them.

Ralph turned back to Bill. "I need to go back down to Earth and find the criminals who did this to him. You don't need me here to heal him up, do you?"

"No."

"How long will it take?"

"It's hard to gauge. Perhaps five to seven hours, if things progress normally."

"I'll be back here by then."

"Very well."

For a brief moment Ralph was tempted to ask for a third instruction book, but the alien wasn't offering one and it seemed a losing cause.

They both stood watching the lights encircling Bill. "You should learn to aim better when landing on train roofs," the green guy said. "That way you will not distract Agent Maxwell from protecting himself."

Ralph seemed to shrink down to three feet tall. He felt like a child being righteously chided by a parent for breaking a window with an ill hit baseball. Then he realized he hadn't asked for the suit, he hadn't asked to be chosen, he didn't have the damn instruction book, and the last thing he would ever want would be to cause Bill to be gravely wounded. He grew angry.

"I'm doing the best I can," he said huffily.

"You must do better," the alien replied, speaking softly as a simple matter of fact. "Much depends on it." He moved away to the control panel and motioned to the amiable robot to take Ralph back to the recovery room. From there it was another blink of an eye and Ralph was once more back on the tempestuous earth, pelted by enormous drops of rain.

Ralph stood still, lightning and thunder crackling and booming around him, as he watched the ship soar far out into space taking his friend and partner with it. He had never felt lonelier in his life.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

David Hartman thanked providence for having an oddly suited fellow fall from nowhere, distracting the meddlesome FBI agent who had mysteriously discovered them. David had been able to leap a few cars but then his muscles had stiffened with panic at doing so a fifth time and he and Philip were stuck on the train roof. Only after the joy at seeing Philip's blow knock the agent off the roof had David been able to corral his courage and get back to their initial box car, ignoring the claims by the hoboes that they knew the two had murdered the Fed.

With the agent no doubt dead they felt confident their plans were still valid. He hadn't known their target, nor where their final destination was. They leapt off the box car as it slowed down joining the massive lines of track which fed trains through the Los Angeles city system. They were immediately picked up by a couple of their cohorts, glorifying the story of their eventful train ride.

The conference was scheduled to begin the next day, Tuesday. They had rented a lower class home in Studio City with a large garage on the property where they had stored their wires, incendiaries, and other tools of their arsonist trade. Arsonists knew better than to keep very flammable material in their own living quarters. They'd spend the night doing the last stages of organization before implementing their designs to turn the Research dinner banquet room at the hotel into a rousing, fatal conflagration.

However, when Karen failed to show up, suddenly their mind shifted and they wondered if the Fed had been smarter than they thought. Karen wouldn't talk, but how had he tracked her down? How had he tracked them down? A alarm of urgency pierced their previous calm, confident mindsets. They needed those supplies. Hartman and Philip took the used car they had purchased and at 8 p.m. began a speedy drive back up to Bakersfield.

Ralph stood a few more minutes staring upwards although the ship had disappeared, the rainstorm bouncing water off his face. He wondered what to do next. There was a real benefit having an experienced FBI agent as a partner because Ralph had the least cunning mind he knew, and simply hadn't yet developed the capacity to know the best way to lead an investigation.

He had to find the criminals and he supposed he had to alert the authorities that Karen was tied up in the trunk. He didn't want her to suffocate. Ralph ran through the options in his mind. He could contact the FBI and inform them of what was going on….only how could he explain Bill being taken up by aliens for a brief hospital stay? He could go back to the Bakersfield warehouse and try to find another item to holograph, but the vibes were fading as the fire had been a week ago. Wait a second. Bill hadn't had the piece of glass he had found on him; he had probably left it in his car at the train station. Perhaps using that as a vibe guide would work again. Or, he could fly down to LA and find the train at the LA freight yards and vibe off it. Maybe he could just vibe off the train tracks themselves…Or he could go back to Karen Englewood and fly around with her, potentially scaring her into telling Ralph what was going to happen.

His head spinning with possibilities, he simply didn't know what to do. A lightbulb idea set him straight. He'd call his wife Pamela and get her opinion. Ralph knew the intricacies of Palmdale given the amount of time he and Bill spent out in the desert nearby the town, working on perfecting Ralph's suit abilities. There was a pay phone by a gas station on the eastern outskirst of Palmdale. He flew there, knocking over a plastic trash can as he landed. Plastic was good; much softer and quieter than landing on a metal one. It was pretty quiet at the station and luckily no one was outside to notice him. He brushed off coffee grinds from his arm, and then called Pam collect. It was nearing 6 p.m; she'd be at their home.

The phone rang four times and Ralph had to keep his tension under control or he knew there was a good chance he would simply crush to pieces the receiver resting against his head. "Come on, come on, pick up the phone!" he pleaded.

It was sweet and soothing to hear a mild voice pick up and say "Hello."

"Pam! Thank God you're home!"

"Hi, honey, what's going on? I thought we were going out to dinner tonight."

"No, sorry, we can't. I've been helping Bill on a case and it's gone horribly wrong."

"What's happened?"

Ralph told her the story and the heavy silence on the other end of the phone emphasized Pam's dismay. "Will Bill be okay?" she asked in a whisper, shocked by his injuries.

"I think so. But, I've got five hours before I need to be back here to collect him, and I don't know what I should do." He told her this thought processes. "What do you think makes most sense?"

"I don't know, honey. You do need to get that woman out of the truck. It's cruel to keep her tied up in the dark."

"Should I fly her around to interrogate her?"

Pam Davidson was a lawyer and her profession was designed to enter into cases that were presented after the legal investigations were over and charges were filed. She hadn't studied much criminal investigation at school and though perhaps her mind was more cunning than her husband's, based on finding flaws in prosecutors' cases, she usually was not an active part of Bill and Ralph's scenarios. She had much less experience than Ralph in how to logically, and legally, piece together cases from random strands and clues.

"You know I'm not a fan of you and Bill interrogating terrified people in mid-air even though I know doing so has saved lives and solved cases. One way or another you need to call the cops and get her properly arrested."

"So start there?

"I don't know. Maybe first try the piece of glass again. That gave you good information and it's only been a few hours. The vibe energies should still be active. Then go rescue Karen."

"Vibing on the truck contents might be helpful," Ralph said pensively.

"That sounds like a good plan. First take care of the woman, and then vibe the contents. Yeah, honey, that's a start."

It was amazing how talking to another person about all this brought a sense of clarity to Ralph's otherwise discombobulated mind.

"Listen, don't wait up for me. It's going to be an all-nighter, I think."

"Ralph, can I help in any way?"

Ralph pondered the question. "You know, Pam, I've got to be back here around 11 pm—the ship should arrive anywhere from 11-2 a.m., depending on how quickly Bill can heal up. I sure would like to have company during the wait. Do you mind driving up to Ruby's, the diner in Palmdale? I'll meet you there. It's a quick flight from Ruby's to the landing spot."

Pam was a good wife. "I'll be there at 11, honey. Good luck."

"Thanks!"

Ralph hung up as the gas station attendant turned the outside corner coming face to face with Ralph. He dropped the bag of trash on the ground.

"Whoa doggie," the attendant said. "What's with the get up? You nuts or something?"

One couldn't find fault with a man who said things straight from the hip.

"Yes, completely bonkers," Ralph answered. He pointed at the trash can lying on its side, its contents sprawled out in a terrible mess. "Sorry about that."

The man scowled at the clutter and then turned back to the red suited crazy, only to find he had disappeared. Gone. Vanished. Looking left, right, and around the corner of the station, up and down the street, in the gas station bathroom, the attendant didn't find him at all. He rubbed his chin. Maybe Marylou was right and he should cut down on the beer.

Ralph flew quickly back to Bakersfield and tracked down Bill's car at the train station. The car was locked and the keys were still in Bill's pocket up by Saturn. Concentrating on the car door, Ralph unlocked it with his mind. He slid inside, glad to be out of the rain, glad to have normal clothes to put on. He sat behind the wheel taking deep breaths to relax and gather his wits.

A lot had happened in six short hours.

And to top it off, he was hungry.

The rain pelting the roof of the car was somewhat meditative, and Ralph rested his head back against the top of the seat. His rest was disturbed by images of Bill's bone graphically visible through his trousers. He should have landed on the roof on his feet, or at least landed on the bad guys facing Bill. He should have used his telekinesis power to stop the man from hitting Bill. He should have used it to lower a falling Bill to the ground gently.

It was a suit fiasco, all around.

But, other cases had de-evolved in front of them and they had always found a way to push through the harrowing crises and get the job done. Bill would be back in action in a few hours and it would be helpful to him to see that Ralph had made good use of their time apart.

Ralph looked down on the passenger seat and saw the glass piece wrapped up in Bill's handkerchief sitting on top of his bundled up clothes and shoes. He unwrapped the glass and held it up firmly to his chest, staring at the windshield in front of him.

"Come on, vibe for me…" he entreated.

It took several minutes of total concentration; the vibe was indeed weakening.

The window finally shimmered into a vision of the woman sitting tied and gagged in the truck, a little pool of urine underneath her. Ralph's face converted into a Bill-like "Yikes!" look, as he realized that real life was not Hollywood, as people on TV never had to deal with basic body needs. He'd have to get her out of there; after all, there were other body needs she might need to engage in he didn't want to think about. Wait! The truck was being opened by police. Oh, boy. No doubt they had wondered what the truck was doing angled awkwardly on the side of the road. Karen grew animated and thrust her bound hands out for them to undo. So much for flying around with her. Not only that, but there was a good chance they'd let her go. She'd probably say she was attacked and tied up in the back. Ralph could race there but without any authority, without a badge, without any hard evidence, he could never make a convincing argument to arrest her.

Fiasco.

The vision next jumped to the two men he had seen on the roof of the box car. He brought his eyebrows down low in disapproval glimpsing the man who had wielded the crowbar. They were in an old beat up car speeding up the I-5 Freeway to Bakersfield.

"What do you think happened to Karen?" crowbar asked.

"I'm worried the Fed got her before he came after us. How did he find out about us? I can't fathom it."

"What's our plan?"

"Follow her tracks for awhile from the hotel. We know how she planned to go. If we don't see her, I don't know. Check out the hospitals. We can't go to the police looking for her."

"It'll set us back if we don't have those supplies."

"Eddie is trying to track down similar items in LA. Things might turn out okay."

The vision faded. "No!" Ralph cried out. He still didn't know what they were planning on burning down. "Damn!"

Karen was her name. Karen would be able to contact them and bring the supplies down, after being let go by the police. He could follow her from the police, or he could find the two men and follow them back to their hideout. Either of those could take time, though, and he only had four hours before he had to be back in Palmdale. He could stop and tie them up, keeping them from going back to LA, but who was Eddie and would he and others do the fiery deed on their own without their leader?

Investigating with little time was hard. Maybe he would think better with some food in his stomach and him taking care of his own bodily needs. Ralph started the ignition of the car with his mind and then dressed quickly in the car. He patted his pocket, happy to have a wallet with some money in it. He drove to a subway shop and wolfed down a meatball sub, using the facilities afterwards.

Ralph left the shop and stood back outside in the drizzling rain. He still didn't know what to do. People were going to die and he didn't know which trail to follow. He could fly around looking for the car with the two men in it, but with the weather bad it would be hard, if not impossible to find them. With Karen associated with the police, getting involved there seemed like a bad idea. She'd have to get the tire changed, so she couldn't leave right away, anyway. Besides, if he was going to drive Bill's car down to Palmdale, which seemed best, that would take two of the four hours left. It was a confusing puzzle.

Maybe he should just drive to the desert and wait for Bill to get back and give him directions. Bill would know what to do.

It was true. You didn't realize how much you needed someone until they were gone.

Ralph looked up into the night sky.

It was funny how powerless a super strong guy could feel.

In the end, with time to kill, Ralph made a half-hearted attempt to find the car. The piece of glass, which he tried to vibe a third time, was petered out of its energies and no vision came. So, he took off his clothes and took to flight, zipping over to the I-5 and Highway 99, looking for the beat up blue sedan with two men in it.

It was worthless. He couldn't make out the cars in the dark and the languishing storm, as headlights obscured clear details and the wind shook him up. He fell a couple of times onto wet grass, once slipping idiotically on the soaked ground as he hopped his three steps, and like a banana peel skit, plopping down directly onto his butt. A slew of unfiltered expletives screeched out of his larynx and a slight tantrum with his fist embedded nearly his entire forearm in the dirt. Finally, after an hour and a half of being physically and emotionally miserable, he flew back to Bill's Diplomat, ordered the ignition to start and got dressed again. Putting the car in drive he began the trip to Palmdale feeling like a failure. Getting lost and having to ask for directions to Tehachapi highway didn't improve his mood.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

"Come on, Billy, it's time to go," his grandfather said to him.

"But, what about mom?"

"She's a drunk, Billy."

"Edward, to say such a thing to the boy! You know how sensitive he is."

"Sensitive! He needs to grow up into a man, not wallow in his feelings like a girl. There's no use lying to him, Mary. His father left, our daughter is a drunk. That's the pure, simple facts."

Billy looked at his grandmother as she knelt down in front of him. She had kind, green eyes and he could feel the love radiating out of them. "Billy, your mom is ill, and we're going to take care of you for awhile."

Billy nodded.

"Give me your hand, dear."

He did so and allowed himself to be led out of the house, his eyes never wavering from the view of his mother collapsed on her bed, an empty bottle in her hand---

Bill Maxwell woke up from the most vivid dream of his life, as if the universe had split and he had stepped backwards through time, returning to that pivotal moment in his childhood. He would have sworn he was an innocent eight year old boy again. His fingers had actually been encompassed by his grandmother's wrinkled hand; he had smelled his grandfather's breath reeking of tobacco. He had felt the angst of leaving his home, of beginning a new, sad chapter in life.

Geez, what had he had for supper? Bill sat up in bed, only it wasn't his bed. He wasn't in his apartment. He was lying on a long, hard metal table, in a bare, white room. A room he had been in before. With windows that robots looked through….Bill yanked his head to the side seeing a robot peeping at him through the glass, its little metal pseudo-hand waving at him.

The alien ship!

Bill sprang off the table in fear, a sensation of cold needles pressing against his skin, making him shiver. He was in the green guy's ship, but how, why--?

"Ralph! Ralph!" he called out. Where was his partner? They had always come up into the ship together…What had happened? He struggled to ignite his memory and little snippets came into his mind. The train roof. Ralph coming in low and hitting the box car next to him...

Then it was a big, empty nothing. He couldn't remember anything after that.

Bill looked down at his clothes and saw the tears, the holes, the blood stains caked on his trousers and much of his jacket, vest, tie and shirt. Had he been injured? Had he lost that much blood? He probed his body but everything seemed to be working and in good order.

Suddenly, Bill's anxiety elevated to sheer panic and the room seemed to grow very small and bereft of any air to breath.

Oh, god, he thought, what if I'm dead….and…and…they've taken me…

Bill's heart palpitated wildly in his chest and he felt faint. He stumbled back against a corner of the room, fighting the impulse to roll up in a ball. He had only had one panic attack in his whole life, and that had been over thirty years ago, during his first gun battle in Korea. Stuck in a shallow foxhole he had dug out on a hill, he had been surrounded by thousands of attacking Chinese. American soldiers were retreating by the dozens, dying in their dashes up the hill, and his own buddy in their shared hole lay twisted with his head blown clear off. Bill had become petrified, a statue of terror, unable to move, to think, to act. He couldn't even feel the cold metal of the rifle he held uselessly in his hand. It was only when Captain Tracy Winslow dove in beside him, ordering him to collect himself, to fire, demanding him to use his fear, not fall victim to it, did he get himself under control and help himself and the rest of his platoon survive.

He had never panicked since.

Not until this moment.

The robot in the window motioned with his spindly arm for Bill to leave the room. Struggling to catch his breath, Bill nonetheless stood up straight; he'd be damned if he let aliens make him cower in a corner. Sweat poured down his brow but he moved through the automatically opened door.

He glanced out into the main room of the ship, seeing the same green guy he had met before. "Ralph?" he asked, searching for his partner. "Are you here? Ralph?" He was not there. Bill was alone. He saw what he believed to be Jupiter out the wide view screen sixty feet in front of him by the control panel. Alone. In outer space. With aliens.

Bill had grown up watching endless movies of alien invasions plotting to take over the Earth. Roswell happened when he was seventeen. Even though Ralph had yammered at him a bunch of drivel that all the alien flicks had been metaphors for communists gaining control of the world, the fact was that Bill grew up like everyone else knowing for a fact that aliens were bad, evil, and had one solo goal--to take over Earth and very likely slaughter, or eat, the human population.

Those childhood beliefs had remain unchallenged, although of course they were rarely, if ever, actual conscious thoughts. As an adult, UFOs had fallen into the realm of fairies, witches, and vampires—stupid junk only idiots believed. Two years ago everything had changed and his mind had been handed a whole new picture of the truth. Aliens with advanced technology truly existed, were benign and helpful, and wanted to save the Earth not destroy it.

If only they hadn't begun to save the planet by taking up his dead partner. If only they hadn't taken up the dead airman, and the living JJ Beck and his friend Marshall.

It just didn't seem benign to Bill.

It haunted him.

The little robot gave Bill the ear translator and with a shaking hand, Bill inserted it into his right ear.

"Where's Ralph? Is he okay?" Bill asked, his voice embarrassingly higher pitched than normal.

"Ralph Hinkley is not with us."

Oh, god. "Am I dead?" Bill asked. "Like John Mackie?"

The green guy tilted his head at the question. "You are not dead. We have healed you."

Bill felt terrible short of breath, his exhalations coming out in disorganized puffs. It made talking difficult. "I don't understand…"

"You were struck in the head by a crowbar and fell off the train. You were gravely injured."

Bill's eyes danced around his sockets as he attempted to validate the alien's words with his own memories. An image of a brilliant burst of light and a wispy remembrance of harsh, rolling motion was all that came to mind.

"But, then, where's Ralph?"

"He left you with us to continue your investigation."

Bill's mouth hung open wide. "He left me…"

The space ship floated over a rocky, barren planet covered by a reddish sky , a long chasm snaking through the floor of the world for hundreds of miles.

"This is your solar system's fourth planet. You call it Mars," the green guy said, staring out the window. "Desolate. Lifeless. Don't let your planet turn to this."

Bill had heard the speech before. He opened his mouth to speak but the drumming in his chest made it difficult to voice words. "Are you…bringing me back to Earth?"

The alien turned around. "Of course."

Relief poured through every cell in Bill's body. He regained enough presence of mind to probe the alien further. "What happened to John and the others? Where did you take them? What did you do to them?"

"You know all you need to."

"No, I don't. How can I trust you when you do things like that?"

Again that head tilt. "You can trust us. You must."

Bill frowned at that, but said no more. The alien's vague words made him frantic again, and he focused on controlling himself so he didn't find somewhere to hide and curl up into a fetal position.

Earth flew into sight and the ship soundlessly descended down through the atmosphere. It was late at night. The clouds had cleared away and stars were visible. The ship floated down close to the ground.

Home.

"One more thing," the green guy said

Bill felt that ancient battle petrification once more immobilize him.

"You must learn to duck better, Agent Maxwell. We can't have you getting hit with crowbars all the time."

If Bill hadn't been so terrified, he might have wondered if the alien had made a joke.

"I'll work on it," he managed to answer.

"Good. Now, please enter the room."

The alien pointed back to the room he had started in, and didn't have to ask twice. On weak legs Bill rushed through the sliding doors and then the next second he was on the ground, Ralph grabbing hold of him, the ear translator gone. The ship zipped away at what seemed to be lightspeed.

Bill's legs shook and trembled and finally gave out. He sat down with an "Oopmf!" on the wet, squishy sand, water soaking quickly through his clothes all the way to his underwear. His whole body then began to shake and he wrapped his arms around his bent legs, rocking a little back and forth, his forehead on his knees, sweat coating his face. Damn fear, it didn't help anyone, it didn't save lives. He wanted it to go away, but there it was still with him, even though the cause of his abject fright had retreated far away into space.

Ralph knelt beside his friend. Bill's skin and hair was clear of all the blood that had so grossly covered it hours ago, and all visible bruises and wounds were gone without a trace. Yet his collapse worried Ralph. "Bill, are you alright? Didn't they heal you up all the way up?"

After a few more seconds Bill lifted his head and glowered at Ralph. "Don't you ever do that to me again. You know how I feel!"

Ralph grew consternated. "But, I had to get you to the aliens! You were really broken up." He touched the hole in Bill's trouser. "You had a bone sticking up out of your pants."

"Not that, Ralph. Get a clue."

"What then? What?"

"Leaving me alone with them!"

"Oh!" Ralph said, followed by a quieter, "Oh."

He sat down next to Bill, also disregarding the water-logged ground.

"Don't ever do that again," Bill repeated, his voice full of a desperate pleading.

"I'm sorry, Bill. I won't. I won't do it again." He had left Bill on the ship to try to solve the case, and earn Bill's praise, but now he realized his tactical error. Ralph knew Bill's trepidation regarding the aliens and their taking up humans, both dead and alive, from Earth for unknown reasons.

It all seemed so clear suddenly, especially as his actions on his own had led to nothing. Ralph should not have left his partner. It was a mistake, no doubt about it. Ralph added a sincere, "Promise."

Bill's shaking was lessening and his breaths were evening out. "Did you at least get the creeps? Stop their plans?"

Ralph looked away from Bill and made designs in the wet sand with his finger. "No. I didn't know what to do. I needed…", he paused, glancing quickly at Bill for a moment, and then back to his sand doodling, "….guidance from you."

That perked Bill right up and the fear instantly evaporated from Bill's psyche, like a drop of water spilt on a red hot burner. "Ah hah! The old geezer has some uses, eh?"

Ralph smirked. "A few."

"I'm sitting in a bathtub here," Bill said, getting his feet under him to stand. Ralph jumped up and lent Bill a hand. Standing straight Bill took a moment to shake out each pant leg of extra water.

"Legs okay?" Ralph asked.

"Gimme a break. A little green lizard guy and a space ship can't keep old Maxwell down."

Ralph smiled, and held out his hand. Bill paused and then grabbed hold of it.

"Glad to have you back, pardner," Ralph said as they released their grip.

"Don't get maudlin. A group of firebugs is out there. We can hug after they're in jail. Where are we?"

"Ruby's is two miles that way. I left the car there so it would still work. We'll have to walk. Pam's there, waiting for us."

"I could use some hot coffee and a burger," Maxwell said. He glanced at his watch. "Geez, nearly 2 a.m."

"He", Ralph said, pointing upwards, "said it would take up to seven hours to heal your wounds." Ralph looked at Bill's suit. "I wonder why they didn't clean and fix your clothes like they did with my shirt."

"Who cares? Let's get out of here."

They began walking and were silent for a few moments. Bill strode hunched over, his hands deep in his trousers pockets.

"I fell off the train?" Bill asked.

"Yup. Don't you remember?"

"It's all kind of a blur."

"You rolled down the embankment like a spinning top."

Another minute passed.

Was my bone really sticking out of my trousers?" Bill asked.

"Yeah. It was sickening. I almost puked."

Another minute.

"Ya didn't find either of my guns, did you?"

"Didn't think to look."

"Can't believe I lost both of them. That's going to put a serious crimp in the budget."

"We can look for them after the case, if you want."

Another minute.

"That guy hit my head with the crowbar?"

"Yeah. Pretty hard."

"Creep. Guess the green guy is right. I gotta learn to duck better."

"He told me to aim my landings better."

Bill laughed out loud. "Now there's an alien I can trust! Criticism after my own heart!"

Ralph was not so similarly amused. He decided to forget his apology to Bill for crashing onto the train. Ralph cast a look at his friend and shook his head back and forth. Of course, the problem with not apologizing was that Bill never required Ralph to offer one, and when Ralph did, Bill always brushed it aside.

It was a special sort of friendship which bonded them together, one which allowed each person to be honestly who they were, demanded few explanations, no apologies, expected endless insults to slough off one's back and be left harmlessly behind, and was glued firmly together by rarely recognized affection.

Another minute passed.

"Bill, I'm sorry for crashing onto the train."

"Ah, Kid, don't worry. I shouldn'ta let my guard down. Anyway, things worked out okay."

With a quick flicker they caught each other's eye, wordlessly acknowledging things were indeed "okay".


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Things had also worked out for David Hartman, as if God himself was on the side of the Animal Rights Action League. Karen had successfully used her false ID to fool the police into thinking she was Linda Summers. Being released from them, she had called Terry at the house, giving them an update on what had happened. When David and Philip had stopped at a gas station and checked in with the house themselves, Terry told them about Karen. The three animal activists were reunited at the police station, Karen showing her friends where the truck was towed and the tire changed.

They were all back in Bakersfield by 3 a.m.

Eddie hadn't been able to find any incendiary supplies, but he came back quite pleased with himself for having bought three guns and some bullets from some hood at a bar. None of them knew anything about guns, but it was good to have them in case some other Fed showed up prematurely.

Things were back on schedule. Things were looking good.

The Animal Rights Action League was ready to go.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Pam had a booth saved for them at Ruby's all night diner, and welcomed their entrance with clear excitement. She and the few other night owls present gawked at the disarray of his bloodied, torn suit. Bill growled "Mind your own business" to the strangers, and then reaffirmed he was fine to the Counselor, secretly pleased at her evident concern. He sat down and promptly ordered a large cheeseburger, without tomatoes, and coffee. Ralph got a turkey sandwich and Pam a salad.

As they sat eating Ralph filled Bill in on his amazing flight to Palmdale carrying Bill in his arms, concluding less glamorously with his unsuccessful activities after Bill was in the healing chamber. Finished with the summary, Ralph asked, "So, what do we do now?"

Bill took a couple of pieces of paper out of his pocket. "I've got a couple of things to try. First, you might try holographing on these. It's the mug sheets for Karen Englewood, the woman in the truck, and David Hartman, the fellow who had the metal suitcase. They have pictures on them, which always helps you out a bit."

Ralph grabbed the papers and by reflex started undressing in the diner.

"Ralph, not here," Bill whispered harshly. "In the car."

"Oh," Ralph mouthed, his wife helping to get his jacket back up over his shoulders.

"If those don't do the trick, after you took off from the Bakersfield storage facility, I went back in and discovered another piece of glass…with blood on it. Maybe the blood will keep the vibes longer than the one with only fingerprints."

"Great, Bill. That could work," Ralph agreed. "Where's that piece of glass?"

"In the glove compartment."

Ralph sulked a little. It had never dawned on him to check the nooks and crannies of Bill's car to see if any hidden clues were inside it.

They finished eating and paid the bill. Leaving the restaurant, they piled into Bill's car, Bill and Ralph in the front, the Counselor taking her usual third string utility back-up position in the rear seat. Ralph took off his jacket and shirt and then put the piece of bloodied glass on his lap and the rap sheet on David Hartman on top of his head.

"Double whammy," he said to Bill and Pam.

Ralph squinted at the windshield as he saw the holograph pop into view. "I see it!" he said. Bill put his hand on Ralph's arm and joined in seeing the round, shimmering vision. Pam put her hand on Ralph's shoulder and saw nothing. What about Bill made him able to see when Ralph's own wife couldn't? Something arranged by the green guys, no doubt. Sometimes they seemed paired closer than her and Ralph. Frustrated, she removed her hand and sat back waiting to be told what they were seeing.

"Look, Hartman's in Studio City, 12339 Carver Rd. They've got supplies stored in a backyard garage. Four males," Bill reported.

"Bingo," Ralph said.

Ralph exchanged Hartman's rap sheets for Karen Englewood's. Suddenly they saw the truck parked in a hotel parking lot: Holiday Inn in Century City on West Olympic Blvd. The scene switched to a banqueting room inside and they saw a man fiddling with wires behind an electrical outlet, while Karen took out a canister of some chemical and began slowly pouring a thin line of a chemical around the edges of the room.

"They've already got the room halfway prepared to go!" Bill said.

Bill had seen enough. They explained everything to Pam. "Counselor, what do you want to do? Stay with us or go home?"

"What are we going to do?" Ralph asked. "It's nearly 3 a.m. Can't we catch them after some sleep?"

"No, Ralph, we can't sleep. These guys almost made crunchy peanut butter out of me, are planning to bonfire god knows how many people, and I don't like them. We're going after them now. Counselor? You in or out?"

Pamela had a large brief to finish tomorrow, but briefs were a dime a dozen. She could handle one lost night of sleep and still get her work done. "Are you kidding," she said, "look what happens when I let you two work on your own. I'm staying."

Bill giggled. "That's my girl. Trooper to the end."

"We'll have to get my car when this is over."

"That white bug? Why not leave it here and buy a grown up person's car instead? You are over twenty-one."

Pam's eyes narrowed as they sent evil invisible rays at an oblivious Bill.

Pulling his keys out of his pocket, Bill put them in the ignition but nothing happened when he turned them. "Oh, no," he said. "Not the green guy energy drain thing again. From two miles away?"

"Oh, ah, the ignition may be acting funny because I've been turning over your car with my mind," Ralph explained. He aimed a finger and swirled it around. The car started right up. "Viola!" Ralph said, blowing out the imaginary fire on his finger.

"Great, how am I going to tell Carlisle my ignition only wants to work by telekinesis now?"

"Not my problem," Ralph declared playfully, shrugging his shoulders. Pam smiled in the back seat.

Bill grumbled as he pulled the car onto the highway.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

They arrived in Los Angeles at 4:45 a.m. The plan was fairly simple. Get to the hotel first and then head over to Hartman's garage. Bill knew where the hotel was, having busted a guy for mail fraud in a room there before his time with Ralph. Bill had to first run to his apartment to get his last spare gun. Ralph suggested he change his clothes, too.

"No time for that," Bill said. "We've still got to get through the early morning traffic to Century City."

Leaving the car running, Bill dodged up the outside stairs of his complex like an Olympic sprinter, his long legs taking three steps at a time. He was back in a minute, loaded gun once more stashed in his holster.

Next, they had to pull in for some gas and after filling the tank Bill went to turn the ignition on. Nothing. It still wouldn't start up with the key. "Oh, brother," Bill moped, rolling his eyes. "Ralph."

Ralph started the engine up and they set off to the hotel.

Bill led the way into the lobby, which was still fairly empty at 5 a.m, but for a few hotel workers and early bird risers. His appearance garnered their full attention.

"You should have changed your suit," Ralph murmured into his ear.

Bill noticed he was the target of everyone's eyes and reacted to his embarrassment by snarling "Who cares what you think?" Flipping his badge and identifying himself, he asked to see the manager, who pulled Bill aside to his office, asking what was going on.

"What conferences are here at the hotel today?" Maxwell asked.

"Well, there's the California Accountants Society, the Brain Surgeons Update, and the Symposium of Research Scientists."

"Research Scientists? Do they work on animals?"

"I have no idea," the manager said. "Probably."

"That's got to be it," Ralph said.

"What room are they banqueting in tonight?" Bill asked.

"Banquet Room Hoover. Third Floor."

"You hired any electricians to fix outlets in the room?"

"No, there's nothing wrong with the outlets. Everything's perfectly to code."

Bill, Ralph and Pam exchanged knowing looks. Bill continued, "Call the police and direct them up to Hoover. Keep everyone out of that room. Until I clear it, no one can go in at any time. Do you understand?"

"Agent Maxwell, what's going on?"

"I'll tell you after I stop it." Bill took out a card from his pocket, his main police buddy's information on it. "Call Detective Tommy Danners. Here's his number. Counselor, you stay put here with the manager. Ralph, let's go."

They left the manager and Pam and got in an elevator. Since no one else was present, Ralph undressed down to his suit, wondering where to put his clothes and shoes. "The eternal problem," he complained.

"Leave 'em in the hallway," Bill recommended.

The elevator "Binged!" their arrival on the third floor and Bill withdrew his gun as the doors slid open. The direction sign on the wall in front of them pointed an arrow to the left for the Hoover room. Bill glanced both ways down the corridor and seeing no one, used his head to direct Ralph down the hall with him. Ralph dropped his clothes and walked normally as Bill slunk cautiously towards the room.

"You done?" they heard a female's voice call out in the banquet room. "I've got the incendiary spread throughout the room."

That was all Bill Maxwell needed to hear. Without waiting for Ralph to go in first, protected by his suit, Maxwell yanked the door open fully, flew into the room, his gun held securely by both his hands.

"Freeze, creeps! This is the FBI!" He pulled his badge out and waved it around so both the surprised felons could see. Karen lifted up her bottle of fluid in the automatic act of dousing Bill with it, but Ralph was right there, snatching it out of her hand before she saw him move. A good hard push and she landed in a chair, Ralph's hand on her shoulder keeping her from moving at all.

"You, put the screwdriver down and assume the position on the floor." The man hesitated. "Now, Sparky!" Bill added, his gun aimed directly at the man's chest.

The man put his tool belt on the floor and then spread himself out on his stomach, his arms spread eagle. Bill came over and handcuffed his wrists together behind his back, then put his gun back in his holster. He took out the man's wallet to learn his name and then dropped it on his back. Throwing a second set of cuffs to Ralph, Karen was similarly immobilized. Ralph wandered over to Bill who squatted down and took a moment to unscrew the outlet and pull off the protective plate.

Ralph glanced down. "What do you see?"

"They've got all the outlets wired with a little incendiary, explosive and a timer; there's also an antennae so that a radio signal could set off the explosive, if necessary." He touched the carpeting under the outlet, and rubbed his fingers together, wiping the fluid off on his trousers. "One tiny spark would have ignited the chemical Little Karen Sunshine spread. It would have raced around the room like an Indy sports car. With the doors locked closed, no one would have stood a chance." Bill turned to scoff at his captive. "Wait till your mommy hears what you've done."

"Drop dead, Fed."

"Maybe, one day. But, not from a fire you set. You're going to jail for a long time."

The police came fifteen minutes later and Bill told the startled cops several times, in increasing magnitude, not to send for an ambulance, he was fine, really, fine. They were not wholly convinced by his appearance but cancelled the call. Bill explained everything to Tommy and turned the two criminals over to him.

Bill got back in the elevator holding all of Ralph's attire and a whisper from an invisible Ralph made him jump. "You really should have changed your clothes."

Bill sighed heavily. "Oh, brother."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Ralph rematerialized and quickly dressed, Bill holding the "Door Close" button until he was done. They picked up Pamela in the manager's office. The manager effusively shook their hands and thanked them over and over for preventing a tragedy in his hotel. Bill pulled the man aside and got him to agree to leave the presence of Ralph and Pam out of his answers to any enquiries he'd receive from the police or reporters. The man would have stood on his head all day if Maxwell had asked him to and nodded liked a bobble-head toy.

Back in their car, Bill rolled his eyes as Ralph got it going—"Will you fix that? Telekinesis the car into accepting the key again"—but Ralph was enjoying Bill's irritation so much he didn't yet try to remedy the situation. He just blew out his finger with Bill mumbling something about yanking it off.

It was 6:00 a.m. when they arrived at Hartman's hideout. Bill parked the car a hundred feet down the block.

Bill spoke, "Alright, we've taken out two, but there's four more there. We've got the house and garage to cover. Ralph, you start with the house. I'll go to the garage."

"What about me?" Pam asked.

"You stay put."

"You're always telling me to stay put."

"Which is why you're still around to stay put."

Pam couldn't deny here was a bizarre sort logic in there.

"Honey, I have to agree," Ralph said. "We know they're willing to kill. Look at Bill's suit." He snickered.

"Do you mind?" Bill asked. "Enough, please, with the suit. Alright, let's go."

Bill and Ralph left Pam alone in the car. She rationally knew she should stay in it. Ralph had the suit, Bill had his experience, his gun and his sharp-shooter aim, and she had nothing but her well wrought worry.

With three jaunty hops Ralph lifted airborne as Bill snuck onto the property and slinked around the house, heading to the largish, 30X 40 foot one story garage. Ralph made a tight circle in the air over the block and then lowered himself down to crash through a bedroom window. He landed on the bed with some little force, the spring of the mattress thus bouncing him into the wall. He slid down onto a bent leg. The wall cracked where he had splattered sprinkling him with bits and pieces of plaster, and a cheap little picture of a cowboy on a horse flew off its hook and fell directly on Ralph's head.

The noise was considerable. Ralph stood up brushing the dust off his suit and the plaster out of his tight blond curls. The fellow with the crowbar came into the room, screamed out "You again!" and launched himself at Ralph. Ralph snatched the crowbar out of his hand and with his other grabbed hold of the front of his nemesis's shirt throwing him into a rickety bookcase holding a smattering of brokenly bound books. Ralph rolled the crowbar up into a compressed little round ball, hating the object that had nearly killed Bill. He dropped it to the carpet and flattened it with his foot, then kicked it through the baseboard next to the man. He dodged away from the nifty hole in the wall the crowbar puck had made.

Ralph strode to the felon, who sat covered with a couple of thin fake wooden shelves and books, and lift him up again by the front of his clothes until his feet were off the ground.

"What? How?—" the man queried, his shock keeping his conversation to one syllable words.

"I don't like you," Ralph said, and controlling his strength he slammed the man vehemently into a wall, knocking him out but not greatly harming him. Ralph let him slide down to the floor and then looking around found a couple of belts and tied him up extremely tightly. Perhaps even a teensy bit painfully so.

Suddenly Ralph heard gunshots coming from the back of the house and his communicator spilled out urgent words. "Ralph! Ralph! I need some help, Kid!"

Ralph dashed through the house to the back door and ran to the garage. At the wide bay entrance he saw Bill squatting down behind some boxes as bullets ripped into the front of them. Bill leaned out a little and sent off several shots, catching one of the men in the arm, which caused him to twisted about and plummet to the floor hollering in pain.

Ralph strode over to the other fellow, covering up his face with his forearms as the man shot at him. The bullets pinged and panged off his arms ricocheting throughout the room. When the trigger sounds were empty clicks Ralph grit his teeth, tore the gun from the man's hand, and tossed him ten feet back. He smacked against the wall and landed hard on the cement floor, unmoving.

Bill raced up to Ralph's side, reholstering his gun. "Great going, Kid!" He then noticed Pam standing by the entrance. "Counselor, that is not staying put!"

"The gunshots troubled me." She walked in to them. "It's over?"

Bill looked at the two incapacitated men. "Ralph tie them up somehow. I'm out of cuffs." Ralph did so with rope he found on a work table, also tying a relatively clean cloth around the arm wound of the man Bill had shot. "That's two," Bill continued. "You got the other two in the house, right?"

"No, just one before you called for help," Ralph replied, returning to his partner and wife.

"But, Ralph we know there were four." He pointed to the men, "One, two, your three. Where's number—"

Suddenly a shot rang out and Bill's head spontaneously arched sideways like a whip snap, until his right ear almost touched the top of his shoulder. Some blood spurted out of his temple, which landed in a pattern of dots on Ralph's cheek. Bill stumbled clumsily into Pam's chest, her arms instinctively wrapping around him.

"…Four…uhhh…" he croaked. His eyes closed, his head sagged loosely on his neck and he sank downwards.

Pam yelled out "Bill!", her arm strength thankfully enough to slow his 6'2", 170 pound descent and prevent his head from violently striking the floor. "Oh, my god!" she cried, as she arranged him on his back.

After a second of wide-mouthed alarm Ralph spun around to the entrance with unmitigated anger in his eyes. The man shot at him and the bullet bounced off his chest. Ralph pointed his hand at the man and then swiping his arm in a half circle the man's gun was pulled from his hand by an invisible force and was cast away across the room. Ralph then did the same with the man and he shouted out "AAHH!" as he was lifted by nothing and tossed about like a rag doll by nothing, hitting various objects until he was unconscious. Then Ralph let go with his mind and gravity brought the criminal down on his stomach, a tooth or two popping out of the man's mouth as his face smashed into the floor.

Ralph, breathing heavily, wiped Bill's blood from his face, his stomach revolting at the action, his body minutely shivering. Kneeling down next to his friend, he tenderly touching the bullet wound, a small, round visible hole above Bill's left ear. Pam was on the other side of his body, her hands fiercely holding onto him, as if refusing to let his life flee from her.

"Oh, god, he's been shot in the head!" Ralph cried. "We've got to call for an ambulance!"

As Pam began to rise, Bill's eyes flickered open, and he voiced a raspy "Ugh." His hand encircled his forehead, "What happened? What am I doing down here?"

Ralph and Pam exchanged curious looks. Didn't being shot in the head usually cause grave morbidity and oftentimes have fatal consequences? They looked back down at Bill, who was looking up at them.

"What?" he asked, apprehensive about their peculiar gazes. "What's going on?" Before either of the surprised Hinkleys could get their mouths to function, Bill added in, "Boy, do I have a headache."

"Bill," Pam said, slowly and deliberately, "you've been shot in the head."

Bill's face registered the comment, his eyebrows falling into a thoughtful line. "Shot? In the head?"

"Yes," Ralph said. "We're going to call for an ambulance."

"Are my brains on the floor?"

Pam answered, her long, straight black head hanging above him, "No… which might justify some of my previous comments about you—"

"Counselor, do you mind not insulting me while I have a bullet in my head?"

"Yeah, Pam, come on."

She regretted her joke. "Sorry," she said, contritely. "Habit."

Bill's hand meandered over to the left side of his skull and felt the blood inching down his scalp. "Holy…Sit me up," he urged.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Ralph said.

"If I can say it, I can probably do it," Bill answered. He held up his arms. "Upsy-daisy."

They pulled him up and he sat there, wiping blood out of his ear and cleaning his hand off on his suit.

"How do you feel?" Ralph enquired, holding onto him in case he fainted again.

"A little dizzy. Where's the gun?"

"The gun?"

"Of the guy who shot me. Where is it? Bring it over here."

Ralph got up and following the trajectory of his telekinetic action he found the gun pretty quickly lying in a corner. He brought it back to Bill.

Bill examined it. "Must be my lucky day," he said. "This is a .32 caliber. Where'd they get this? GunsRUs?"

"Bill, we don't know anything about gun calibers," Pam said.

Bill held the gun up and explained. "A .32 caliber has the stopping power of a moth. From where he shot me, I guess the bullet didn't get into my brain."

"Could just be a very small target…" Pam said smiling widely until Bill and Ralph glared at her. She curtailed her expression. "Sorry. Habit."

"Could you skip the inevitable 'blockhead' comment, too?" Bill queried.

"Really, I'm sorry."

"You mean it's stuck in your skull?" Ralph asked.

Bill wondered, "Seems that way." His face deformed into a massive grimace. "Boy, it sure does make a whopper of a headache, though. Counselor, go call the police from the house. Ralph, stand me up. I think I should get to a hospital and have them pull the bullet out."

"Why not wait for an ambulance?"

"Nah, don't like 'em. Siren's too noisy."

Ralph and Pam sighed in resignation. He could be impossible at times. Pam left the garage to make the call.

"Are you sure you can stand?" Ralph asked.

"With your help."

Ralph wrapped his arms around Bill's back and pulled him up, holding onto him until he was sure Bill was steady on his feet. For a few seconds, Bill's eyes dulled over and he held his arms out to his side as if he was terribly off balance. A few moments later he got his bearings and stabilized his stance.

"I guess the green guys were right," Ralph said, still close beside him.

"Huh?"

"You are pretty bad at ducking," he grinned.

"That's because I rely on my suit wearing partner to prevent me from having to duck. Four bad guys, Ralph."

Ralph had no answer to that.

Bill closed his eyes tightly and suddenly grabbed hold of his friend. "Get me to a box to sit on, or I think I'll fall down again. Then tie that fourth guy up, and get yourself dressed," Bill said, nodding his head at the still unconscious shooter. Ralph got him to a box before the world turned fully grey and Bill eagerly sat, hands solidly planted to each side, his vision clearing. Watching Ralph bind the criminal he scoffed, "A .32. One step above a water gun. Boy, the class of criminals nowadays is really getting stupider."

Ralph looked at the blood still dripping from his friend's wound, coloring his ear red and soaking into a part of his shirt collar that had not, as yet, already been stained in blood. He had seen too much of Bill's blood today, enough hopefully to last for the entirety of their partnership. Bill's face was pale, he was shaking a little, and a light sheen of sweat bubbled on his forehead as an emotional stress reaction kicked in to his having been shot. There he was, the indefatigable Bill Maxwell, an utter mess, his suit unsalvageable, bullet stuck in his skull, yet still alive and soon to be well.

It's a good thing, Ralph thought, relinquishing proper grammar as had his partner. Stupider criminals is a very good thing.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

The police took over arresting the men at Hartman's home. Three of them needed their own ambulance. They didn't keep Agent Maxwell long, given that he had been shot in the head, even though he had recovered from the shock and was standing around arguing about the best burger joint in Malibu with one of the Detectives. All the cops at some point came over to him, patting him on the back and offering sincere congratulations on surviving. None of them could avoid jesting with him regarding his having such a thick head it could stop a bullet.

The attention embarrassed, annoyed and greatly pleased Bill.

By 7 a.m. Bill, Pam and Ralph were in the ER of a hospital. While Bill was getting X-Ray'd and evaluated, Ralph and Pam coincidentally met one of Bill's coworkers they knew, there for his son's attack of appendicitis, and told him about Bill having been shot. The coworker's brow lifted several inches higher than its usual position and he dashed off to make a phone call to the FBI.

It was not too surprising that Bill came out of his exam room at 7:45 a.m., a doctor and nurse tailing behind him. Bill rolled his eyes at his friends. The bullet hole had been covered with gauze and a two inch line of tape ran around his head keeping it in place. Blood had been cleaned off his face, neck and ear.

"Mr. Maxwell, we really think you should stay here until the neurologist can examine you," the doctor said.

Bill wriggled all his fingers. "Look. I'm wriggling my toes, too. I'm fine. You said the bullet doesn't need to be removed right away. That it's solidly stuck in there and won't pop into my brain. Right?"

The doctor and nurse looked to Ralph and Pam for support but the Hinkleys collectively shrugged their shoulders indicating they had none to give.

"Yes, that's correct, but still—" the doctor implored.

"—Still nothing. I've got to get to a meeting at 8 am."

Further pleading availed the medicos nothing except a promise from Bill to return within two days to have the bullet removed. Bill pulled his team over. "Listen, kids, I've got to get to the office. Carlisle will have my garbanzos if I'm not there as Chief Cain ordered."

"Don't you think some qualification would be made for you having been shot?"

"With Carlisle? Not likely. You two are going to have to take a cab home." Once home, Ralph you can drive the Counselor back to Palmdale to pick up her Big Wheel."

"It's a perfectly valid car, Bill," Pam complained.

"For a sixteen year girl, true. Listen, no time to chitchat. I gotta go." He tapped his skull above his bandage. "Boy, those pain meds really work. My head doesn't throb at all." He took out a bottle of pills from his pocket. "They should add these to the city water."

"Are you sure you should drive on medication?" Ralph asked, trying to read the label.

Reinserting the bottle into his jacket, Bill said, "Gimme a break. Double vision just means you see two red lights. Did you fix the car's ignition?"

"I tried. Let's see if it works with the key, now."

They walked to the Diplomat and climbed in. Bill put the key in the ignition, looked at Ralph who crossed his fingers, and with a quick turn the car started right up.

"Good," Bill said. "Alright you two, vamoose. I'm on a tight schedule here." He yawned widely. Immediately Ralph and Pam yawned, too. "Long day," Bill said.

"Twenty-four hour day," Ralph answered. "Look, give us a call later and let us know how you're doing."

Bill yawned again and nodded, waving them out of the car.

Pam spoke quietly to Ralph as they exited. "Honey, are you sure he should drive?"

"Do you want to try to convince him otherwise?"

She saw Bill take his gun out, check the bullets left in the cartridge and then slam it back in his holster. "No…"

"Let's go home. I've gotta sleep and you need to get to work. We'll get your car when we can. You can drive mine today."

"I wonder what they're going to say when he arrives at his office."

"I wonder how he's going to explain everything to Carlisle."

They watched Bill drive away and when he didn't crash into any other car in the parking lot, and he made a safe left turn, they went back into the hospital to call a cab.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Bill Maxwell's hurried stride through the hallways of the FBI left him feeling very nervous about being fifteen minutes late. As he trotted to the conference room, he heard a hubbub of whispering from the colleagues he passed and a few folks actually dropped what they were holding. Was he really in that much trouble? Bill hoped he wouldn't be suspended, again. He was tired of Carlisle doing that to him.

At 8:15 a.m. FBI agents were gathered in the room, standing and talking with Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee in their hands. "Alright, people, have a seat," Carlisle ordered. "Deputy Bureau Chief Cain doesn't have all day."

The agents sat in their usual seats, their files plopped on the desks in front of them.

Bill barged into the room, case folder in hand, and all eyes bugged out seeing him. His short brown hair was porcupined off his head, strands pointing every which way. His unshaven face contained burgeoning grizzly grey whiskers. His suit could only be called a zone of destruction. There was a large hole by his right knee, holes by his shoulders, by his left elbow and numerous tears all over the grey fabric. Blood stains were evident throughout the fabric of his suit, and just about his entire shirt collar was dark red, as were large spots on his tie and vest. Drops of old, dried blood stippled his shoes. The pristinely white bandage and tape stood out like the moon at midnight. But, there he stood, tall and straight, his broad shoulders filling out his suit, as if nothing was wrong, nothing was out of order.

"Sorry, Carlisle and Chief Cain, for being late," Bill said. Apologies didn't usually go far with his boss, but it seemed the best place to start.

The room was drop dead silent. Bill glanced around and saw he was the focus of everyone's attention. He hadn't eaten in six hours so there couldn't be food stuck in his teeth; nonetheless he ran his tongue over his mouth, just in case.

Oh, boy, there was no doubt how much trouble he was in. Stickler for Promptness Carlisle was going to hammer him for his tardiness in front of the Chief.

Bill made a lame play at lessening the seriousness of the situation. "Uh, though, it's only fifteen minutes…"

Carlisle spoke to Bill with precise diction in a low volume as if he was a patient and tolerant parent asking four year old Billy to explain why he had crayoned the living room wall. "Bill…Agent Maxwell…weren't you shot…in the head…this morning?"

Bill's mouth did a silent "Oh" and he activated one of his several habitual nervous ticks—his patented right shoulder shrug. "You heard about that? Gee whiz, gossip really travels fast. Well, uh, yeah, you know, boss, I was, but only by a .32 caliber. Can you believe the guy only had a .32? Took me by surprise at first, but the old Maxwell resilience came through." He pointed to his bandage. "The bullet's still in there. Didn't have time for them to remove it before the meeting took place."

Silence and stares. For a solid minute. For the first time in his life, Bill wished for the green guys to beam him up again.

"And…the rest of you?" Carlisle asked, incredulously, his hand going up and down in the air pointing out Bill's appearance.

Bill looked down at his suit, the holes, the blood, the dirt. He picked at a random thread which kept coming out and out so he just let it go. Bill had been in such a monomaniacal rush to get to the conference on time he had not quite allowed his slightly drug altered, exhausted and bullet laden head to come up with all the explanations his appearance demanded. He stood there, his tongue dancing around his lips. "Well," he said, "uh, there was this little train incident..."

"The train you fell off of?"

"Huh?"

Carlisle's knowledge of that temporarily derailed Bill's budding cerebral machinations.

"Bill, two hoboes hitched a ride on a freight train from Seattle to Los Angeles. They got off at LA and reported to the police that an FBI agent named Maxwell, who had gotten on at Bakersfield, had been pitched off the train at forty miles an hour."

Bill giggled. "Really? They reported that? I can't believe they turned out to be responsible citizens. Especially after I told them to fall into a stupor."

Carlisle let that obscure, incomprehensible reference pass, shaking his head brusquely a couple of times, as if he was trying to expel an insect from his hair. "Yes, they reported that. They said the men who pushed you off had just left the train. A search was made but the men weren't found. The LA cops contacted the Bakersfield police who did, indeed, confirm you visited them for information, but your car wasn't found at the station. The hobos explained to the police exactly where the train was on the route when you were, apparently, forcefully ejected from it, and a search was made. One of your guns was found on the ground nearby where they said you fell from the train."

Bill beamed brightly at the good news. "They found one of my guns? That's great. Now I only have to buy one new one. Can I pick it up after the meeting?"

Carlisle wondered if his agent was actually as daft as he so frequently appeared. Bill seemed to miss all the important points and focus on the trivialities. Carlisle ignored the question and continued with his story.

"When you weren't found, but some blood was discovered at the bottom of the embankment, a search for you was begun in all the hospitals from Bakersfield to Los Angeles."

Gradually, Bill started figuring out what had been going on in his absence.

"No hospital reported your admittance."

Bill darted his eyes upwards at the ceiling as he anxiously bit down on the side of his lower lip, remembering exactly which 'hospital' had treated him. He then did a little cycle of all the movements that overtly defined his agitation, stretching his neck out, clearing his throat and once again shrugging his right shoulder. This wasn't looking good. A zillion scenarios played out in his imagination as he struggled to cohesively formulate a realistic explanation for his last twenty-four hours. His mind began churning out a fable that would have humbled the Brothers Grimm.

Carlisle continued, "Then, around 7 a.m we get a call from Agent Kyle Atkins at Mercy General right here in L.A. that you were admitted with a bullet in your head--"

"—Well, not much of a bullet--"

"And now here you are, looking like that!"

"At least my socks match my trousers, Carlisle," Bill joked, lifting one trouser leg up a little to prove he was indeed wearing grey socks with his grey suit.

Carlisle's exasperation was mounting. "Bill, perhaps you want to explain to all of us just what has been going on? Starting with the train? Being thrown off it at forty miles an hour?"

Some anonymous comedian called out "Look, up in the sky, it's Super Bill!"

The room sniggered as Carlisle demanded everyone "Shut up!"

Carlisle's plot had slightly backfired; by spending so much time on the Maxwell Tale, designed to catch Bill in unfathomable doings, it had given his bright and clever underling the chance to formulate his answers.

Bill shook his head. "Oh, no, the train was only going maybe fifteen miles per hour. Twenty at most."

"And you fell from the top of the roof onto rocks."

"Nah, I landed on sandy dirt, between the rocks. Cushiony, like your new office sofa. Nice and soft."

"The hoboes clearly said 'rocks'."

"Did you get their blood alcohol levels anytime during their report? They were gulping down rye like a sewer drain after a rainstorm."

"The police reported rocks."

"Did they state there was no sand or dirt between the rocks?"

"Look at your suit! The blood!"

"Mostly from the bullet, but also I did get a little rough with one or two of the criminals in the garage. It's probably some of their blood, too." And then came the coupe de grace, "I mean, look, Boss, I'm not hurt anywhere." He held his arms out to the side, offering up his whole body for inspection, unable to avoid a smarmy smile. "Not a scratch."

Carlisle's face swelled like a purplish red balloon as his ire at Maxwell assumed gigantic proportions. If Maxwell had been closer to his boss, Carlisle might not have been able to control his hands, which he held in fists by his thighs to keep them from wrapping around Maxwell's undoubtedly muscular neck. Carlisle was sure, however, he could wring it like a wet dishcloth, getting every last drop of fluid from it. Maxwell saw Carlisle's emotional reaction reaching "nuclear fission" and had the good sense to keep quiet.

"Carlisle, let's stop the interrogation. You got the arsonists, didn't you, Agent Maxwell? Come on up here and tell us all about it." He planted a friendly arm in Bill's back and guided him to the podium. Bill brushed his hand through his hair, failing to bring any real order into it. Carlisle stood to the side, hating his chastisement.

Bill's perspicacious mind came through for him in the end. He mentioned driving up to the warehouse in Bakersfield, finding the piece of glass, the fingerprints, the police using them to find Hartman and Englewood. Bill's canvassing of cafes eventually hit pay dirt and he was able to learn from a waitress she'd over heard Hartman and another fellow planning to board the 3:21 freight train to Los Angeles. Bill wasn't successful in capturing them on the train, and was pushed off luckily landing on soft ground. Stunning, but no real injuries. It took a few hours of walking but finally a passing car picked him up and drove him back to Bakersfield. Before being attacked from behind he had gotten from Hartman that he was after Research Scientists. He drove back to LA and checked a lot of hotels until uncovering the one which was having a Symposium of Research Scientists conference, the Holiday Inn in Century City. He went there and was able to capture Karen Englewood and Eddie Thompson, already getting the incendiary process in place, and they spilled the location of the Studio City house where Hartman was. He drove there and busted those four men, but was shot in the head in the process.

It made sense, perfect sense. Bill had stopped a catastrophe from happening and saved the lives of three hundred research scientists and god knows how many other people who may have been victims of the fire if it had spread beyond the confines of the banqueting room.

The lack of mention of bones sticking out of trousers, green aliens, space ships, holographs, and magic jammies didn't seem important. As usual, the felons had kept Ralph to themselves to avoid getting Rubber Room stamped on their foreheads. Jail was much better than being assigned to a mental institution and daily doses of psychiatric drugs.

"Amazing," the Chief Cain said, actually clapping, and all the other agents joined in on the rousing applause. "Simply amazing."

"But doesn't his explanation sound a little fishy?" Carlisle asked.

"Fishy? Not at all. It fits the facts as we know them," Cain said, as if Carlisle was an idiot.

"As we know them," Carlisle repeated, casting a shrewd look at Bill, who returned a visage along the lines of a little boy holding his new puppy. Innocent. Joyful.

Bill had to give Carlisle due credit. His boss had as strong an instinct for sensing when Bill's story was hogwash, as Bill did in perceiving which cases seemed suit worthy. And, Carlisle was right. The real story of his solving this scenario hadn't been told. It couldn't be.

Bill respected Carlisle for his inquisitive mind and his deft intuition. It made it easier to handle all the endless grief Carlisle dumped on his as a result.

"What about Ralph and Pam Hinkley being at Hartman's home when the police arrived?" Carlisle persisted.

"I called them in case I couldn't drive by myself. They drove over to check on me. In fact, Pam Hinkley was the one who called the cops after I got a little dizzy for a few minutes."

"The police didn't mention their car."

"Carlisle, why should the police care about their car?"

"Enough, Les, enough." The Deputy Bureau Chief shook Bill's hand. "Well done, Agent Maxwell. It's unusual and non-standard having you work alone, but I'm going to continue to allow it since your success is so continually impressive. I'm going to put a gold star in your file for this case."

"Thank you, Chief," Bill said. "Your praise means a lot to me." It did. And, it was the perfect way to thumb his nose at Carlisle and he enjoyed every minute of it. Carlisle's body began shaking as if an earthquake was occurring in tectonic plates in his torso. He had enough pent up pressure inside to re-erupt Mount Vesuvius, a defunct volcano for two thousand years. Bill grew slightly worried and decided to quit kidding around with his boss to forestall the risk of him suffering a massive heart attack.

"I want to be clear, Sir," Bill added, speaking to Cain, "I had no idea there was a search going on for me. I would of course have reported in if I had known it."

"Yes, yes, of course. Don't worry about it. We're all simply relieved to see you're okay. Now, Agent Maxwell, go home and get some sleep, and then get that bullet removed. If you need to, take a couple of days off, on medical leave. Write up the report when you get back."

"But--!" Carlisle chimed in.

"Les, the man's been up over twenty-four hours."

There was no way for Carlisle to put up any more argument without overtly appearing to be the ass that everyone pretty much covertly believed he was.

"Yes, sir," Bill said.

As Bill made his way to leave the room, his fellow agents collaboratively stood up and began shaking his hand and patting his back as the police had done. Exclamations of "Great job! Well done! What a bust!" filled the air. Bill was uncomfortable with attention of this sort although it was a great boost to his sometime insecure ego. He retreated into cockiness, downplaying the arrest of six criminals, his fall off the train ("It's all in the tuck and roll") and his being shot with the .32 ("Like being hit by a baby's thumb"). As he left, the commendations were still audible behind him.

Bill went into the community room and saw Rose Harris by his desk, dressed as usual to show off her undeniably female body, jangles of jewelry around her neck and hanging off her ears. He walked up to her, plopping the folder sloppily on top of several other ones.

"Hello, Rose," he said. "What're you doing here?"

"So, you don't call or write. What am I, chopped liver?"

Huh? Her non-sequitur response baffled him and she stood arms akimbo cutting him no slack. It took a few seconds for her complaint to register. Oh, their dinner plans last night. He had completely forgotten about them. Bill sighed. Ever since he and Ralph had saved Rose from the Russians, he and Rose had become friends. They had enough in common, even given their twenty year age difference, to enjoy going out to dinner or a movie, or playing some pool in a bar. It was not serious dating, just a casual time together once or twice or month.

He had stood her up last night.

"Sorry, Rose, I'm truly sorry. Don't get mad. I got busy on a case again."

Bill had cancelled a meeting or two before due to work. Considering that she had once herself been part of his "work", she was amenable to that excuse.

"I cooked a whole chicken. Made a nice salad. Got leftovers up the wazoo." Like a blindfold being removed, she suddenly let go of her self-centeredness and noticed Bill's appearance. "What happened to you?"

"Long story." Fatigue suddenly settled on Bill like a sumo wrestler jumping on his back, and his bones turned to lead "Listen, can you drive me home? I gotta hit the sack." He didn't think driving now would be such a good idea. Ralph could drive him back to work in a day or two.

"Are you alright? What's with that bandage? What's with your suit?"

"It's nothing. I'm fine."

"You'd say 'it's nothing' if you walked in carrying your head under your arm."

"Maybe. Come on, let's go. Charity run to the Maxwell Villas."

"So, what was the case about?"

"Some guys playing with matches."

"Some guys…? That's it? No details?"

"Rose, I'll write a thesis on it tomorrow. Right now, I really need to get home."

She tsk'd her disapproval at his paltry answers, but picked up her purse to go. Noticing another woman in the office surreptitiously examining her and Bill, Rose wrapped her arm through his, raising her eyebrows at the woman as she claimed ownership, which she didn't have, true, but nonetheless a girl has to stand up for herself now and then and appear the winner of a grand prize even if she wasn't in the contest.

Bill naturally didn't notice any of this inter-female silent communication.

At 9:15 a.m., she pulled up at his apartment complex, and instead of just saying good-bye, Rose grabbed the leftover chicken she had in the car and walked with him up the long flight of stairs and through the outside hallway to his studio apartment. Bill's feet clomped heavily up the stairs and he walked past his mailbox, his lethargy mushrooming; his bills could wait till later.

Bill appreciated Rose's gift of food. He liked her chicken. Rose had a talent for using Italian spices. And, he knew his own fridge was empty except for a beer or two and some mustard and moldy bread, and he'd no doubt be starving when he woke up from his upcoming twelve hour sleep. Cold chicken would do until he got to his corner deli.

He fumbled with his keys a little but got the door open and they went inside. Rose put the chicken in the fridge as Bill took off his ruined jacket and bloodied tie and threw them on his cherished antique roll top desk which had been his grandfather's. His vest soon joined them.

"Thanks," he said, grateful for her help.

She came up close to him and smiled; she had very white, straight teeth, strawberry blond, mid-length curly hair, and always that mischievous look in her eyes. "Well, I naturally want a favor from you in return."

Oh, brother. What drivel was she going to say next? "Rose…" Bill began complaining, before she moved in further and enacted a double action upon him that took him as much by surprise as had the bullet three hours ago.

Wrapping her hand behind his neck she pulled his head forward and expertly planted a passionate kiss on his lips; she was indeed a very good kisser. Her other hand sank to the midline of his body, massaging him through his zipper.

Rose had first initiated sex after their fifth or sixth time together, and they had happily found themselves to be very harmonious lovers. Since neither was in a committed relationship, they appreciated the pleasurable benefits of occasional platonic sex. For convenience sake, they kept it private between themselves.

Still, he was tired. Reluctantly, Bill pulled his head back. "Listen…I don't think---oh!"

Rose had increased the pressure of her massage and began undoing his belt. She was not going to stop. "Every girl crazy 'bout a man of action," she purred. "I want you right now, you tall, dark, handsome Fed."

Bill loved being complimented by women. He became much less tired and his vitality grew measurably enhanced as his belt slid to the floor, his zipper was undone, and Rose dipped her hand beneath his underwear. They both noticed that a very important part of his anatomy seemed quite "up" for sex.

Without any more debate, they tumbled onto the bed, achieving a Guinness Book of World Records award in the category "Quickest Undressing Of Each Other By a Couple". They spent the next half hour exquisitely enjoying their sexual compatibility.

When the apex of their pleasure passed, Rose spent a minute or two resting on Bill's chest, his hand caressing the muscles of her back. Rose then pecked his forehead affectionately, showered quickly, dressed and after another light kiss and a gentle run of her hand down his roughly whiskered face, bid Bill good-bye so he could get his well-deserved, very well-deserved, rest. He waved weakly back at her as she slipped out kindly flipping off the light, put his underwear back on, and settled down comfortably in bed, the essence of sex mixing with the scent of masculine body sweat. He would definitely shower first thing upon awakening. Right then, he had no energy to move even a finger.

The phone rang right at 10 a.m., exactly twenty-four hours after having been assigned the arson case. Bill sighed and lifted up the receiver, flopping back down to talk. "Maxwell."

It was Ralph. "Hello, Bill. Your office told me you were at home. How're you feeling?"

"Not bad. Relaxed and tired. Just heading off to sleep."

"Me too. Things go okay at the meeting?"

"The Deputy Bureau Chief fell for my story hook, line and sinker. Gave me a gold star. Carlisle almost ate his liver."

Ralph laughed. "Excellent! Hey, we did do a fantastic job, didn't we? Saving all those lives."

"Yeah, those creeps could've roasted the entire hotel."

There was a pause. "You know, aside from you being obnoxious sometimes, we make a damn fine team."

"Ralph, you getting maudlin again? You'll make my eyes water."

"A little, I suppose. But, that's the truth. Take it or leave it."

Bill's macho defenses were too bushed to disagree. "Yeah, Kid, I know what you mean. We do pretty well together."

"Surfer boy and gun-toting Fed. Who'da thunk?" Ralph joked.

"No one but the green guys, I guess."

"Yeah, no one but them."

Bill realized that it was probably safe to trust their extra-terrestrial overlords. The aliens had put him and Ralph together and for that he was immensely thankful.

From what Bill's sluggish mind could discern, it seemed that Ralph felt the same way.

They hung up saying "Good night" and Bill lay back, images proliferating in his mind as the magnitude of the day hit home: firebugs, bones sticking out, aliens, Mars, averted hotel bonfire, toy guns, Carlisle's bile rising, kudos from Chief Cain, nice talk with Ralph, and that undeniable ecstasy with Rose.

Not a bad day, he thought, his consciousness lowering down quickly into sleep. Not a bad day at all.

The End


End file.
